Gunnerside to Richmond – Last Day Unladen

Bloody sister cooked me breakfast, washed up, gave me a lift to Gunnerside, drove back to pack the tent away, hung around for the day and drove down to Richmond to drop off my rucksack when I arrived there. She failed, failed I tell you, to give me a packed lunch or iron my socks. Bloody sister. Where can I get another one? This one is brock. Doesn’t it have a 65 year guarantee? She dropped me off at the pub where I met her yesterday afternoon.

Luckily there were public toilets in the village and I had 20p. I needed a poo after the previous night’s fantastic Indian. There was a light on the inside of the door saying ‘Press to Lock’. I had already sat down, and dropped my shorts and undergarments, and was beginning to engage with the task when I saw the light. Well….not a revelation, just the light saying ‘Press to Lock’. This meant the door wasn’t locked.

It’s uncomfortable when you’re in a public khazi, knowing the door isn’t locked. Worse, I couldn’t reach the light to press it without getting up and walking across. What might happen? But to compound it the light also said ‘Press to Unlock’. What if I got up, waddled to the door, pressed the light (with the sound of a metallic clunk), finished off and pressed the light again…..but it wouldn’t unlock! It was a quiet backwater, the toilet I mean, not an obscure part of my lower anatomy. What if it didn’t open now? Panicked I rushed to finish and pulled at the door. It opened, joy of joys! Freedom! Now I know how Mandela felt.

This was a long run down the Swale valley, along tracks higher up the valley side, paths down the bankside and a few road sections.

The weather cleared, then clouds gathered and it rained a bit more, then it brightened a bit. But it wasn’t cold, despite the breeze, and for the time of year I had, over the last 11 days, been very lucky. The Lakes and North Yorkshire are not the Atacama Desert, where average annual rainfall is 0.04 inches. But these two weeks have been good for October.

I was making very good time. 16 miles today was the total and I was eating them up.

Reeth was a nice village, with a decent cheese van, so I bought some Wensleydale Blue for my sis. And some for me, obviously. Up and over the top of the valley side this time, down into Marske. A farmer on a quad bike herded sheep up the lane past me as I was weighing up whether to take the hill road or the valley side path into Richmond. He knew what I was thinking.

‘Are you looking for the Coast to Coast?’ ‘Nay’ I answered, for that is the way folk converse up here. ‘Nay, I’m wondering whether to go up the hill road or down the valley path. The paths so far have been awfully boggy and slippy.’ He let out an involuntary guffaw at my namby pamby nature.

‘Road’s an awful lot longer’ he added. ‘Right, I’m off down the path then,’ I concluded. He smiled, waved an adios and drove after the sheep. Happy in the knowledge that he’d helped to clear an impasse.

Rain incoming again. Hood up.

The colours were delightful, really delightful.

And finally Richmond sneaked up the valley towards me.

My sis was there and handed over my rucksack. I didn’t check if she had taken any money from the inside pocket. Well, not then, but I checked later. No point in souring the atmosphere if I found that she hadn’t nicked owt. She hadn’t. Could of, but didn’t.

Richmond is a nice town. And across the darkened Vale of York I could see the North Yorkshire Moors. The last leg of this journey. But fish and chips eaten from the paper and a warm hotel room come first.

Night night.