July 20, Aysgarth to Hawes

 Do you ever take a photo and then wonder, "What was that about?

Well, this is one of those:

No doubt it meant something significant at the time. And sort of along those lines, or not along those lines,  I want to mention something very annoying.  You ask a person, "Can you please tell me what is the earliest time in the morning that I can drop off my suitcase?"  "Any time is fine."  "Is 7:00 a.m. too early?  Or maybe I should ask whether you have a 24 hour front desk."  "Reception opens at 7:45.  Sorry, we don't have a 24 front desk." 

I thought today's walk would be super easy.  It was not.  More elevation than I expected, for one thing.  Then there were several navigational problems.  Fortunately, I caught myself each time before going too far the wrong way, but that anxiety is exhausting.   A million stiles, the kind with the heavy spring that are hard to keep open as you are trying to squeeze through, tons of gates each with tis own peculiar means of unlatching.  It all adds up!  But it was only about  12 miles!!  Maybe it is the smoke from the wild fires in Canada!

First obstacle of the day:

NO!!!!   I do not do stepping stones!  Thank God the water level was low.  I opted to wade through rather than chance a spectacular accident!  Suzie Grimes, it is for times such as this that one wears boots!  (But honestly, I must be the only person who still wears hiking boots.)

More hay has been made!

Because  they just cannot stop eating!

Girls, it 's been real, but is time to leave these green pastures and waddle off:

An especially pretty section: 

Would you believe?

There were cows in the field; The Bull I did not see, but it is not as if I went looking.  None the less, I proceeded very very cautiously.

Dude, you so badly need a haircut!

I guess a couple of hikers quit:

Speaking of which, I looked up the results for the "A Foot in Two Dales" event.  Only about 25 people did not finish.  I am incredulous. That is truly amazing. Someone told me that there were 150 participants but apparently, there were over 200.  I must stop whimpering about a 12 mile day, especially when I can get ice cream at the end of it!

A view from (not too terribly) high up:

Note the sheep in the left pasture.

YES, ALL ROADS DO LEAD TO CHELM! (even if it is not spelled correctly!)

For those who are not acquainted with the Chelmites:  When God gave out brains, he forgot the good people of Chelm, but Isaac Bashevis Singer immortalized them in a book, The Fools of Chelm and their History.

A section towards the end of the stage was paved with flat stones:

Get out of the way for this guy:

Hawes is a genuine town, replete with antique stores and everything.  This is where Wensleydale cheese is made, BTW.  What surprised me the most is that there is a really good Spar here.  Usually, the Spar is a little convenience store, but this one carries decent produce and good bread!  We all have our priorities and our needs!

Some things I have noticed:  people have been very nice.  I would say that so far, in that regard, this has been the most pleasant of all my walks.  

Teeth: People have terrible terrible teeth.  I still cannot get over that.

Groceries are much less expensive than they are in CT, but of course, that is before converting the currency!  

Tip of the day:  If you are going to have tuna fish, buy tartar sauce instead of mayonnaise. 

July 19, Aysgarth and Bolton Castle

From Aysgarth, the village, there are not a lot of footpaths, going hither and yon, so I decided to take a not-the-Herriot-Way route to Bolton Castle.  It was quite nice!  But first, I had to visit the one big attraction in Aysgarth; no, that is incorrect.  It is the one little attraction:  The Edwardian Rock Garden.

I thought I knew from rock gardens, what with being from Montreal and all, but these rocks and this garden was, WOW, on a completely new scale:

Tiny as it was, there is room for one little bench:

Flower:

After viewing the garden, it was time to set off.  It was cold!!  Really!  '

These gates seem to get tinier all the time:

They are so adorable, though!

Hay has not yet been made:

Look to right of center, you will see a thin, silver colored line.  That is the upper Aysgarth falls.  I have been here before and I remember the loud, rushing noise of the water (from the lower falls, to be honest), but it has not rained in a while and the three falls are reduced to a trickle.  Maybe that makes it easier and more fun for people to cavort on the rocks and in the water and stuff.

It's OK, you don't have to hide:

Great sign:

Bridge and cow:

That cow standing up on the rise was reminiscent of the Osborne Bull in Spain!

Bunny breakfasting:

In the afternoon, I met a couple who were also walking and we got into a bit of a chit chat.  I mentioned that I had never seen so many small, dead animals as I had yesterday and today.  The woman told me that  many rabbits in the area have become infected with  Myxomatosis     Sad, very sad! 

Even big machines need a rest:

A trio:

Approaching the castle, I saw this ad:

Alex, it is not too late to get a ticket!

As castles go, Bolton Castle is more interesting to visit than most.

When you see all those rooms for doing and making and cooking and drinking and weaponizing  and whatnot, it sinks in that a castle was actually a small city.

Noted:

Room with a view:

There was a monks' cell in which a poster told about the monks job of copying texts.  (That is a very bad sentence.) An extract: "The monk would sit at his writing slope, using his quill pen and ink.  The ink was made with crushed oak galls, a type of growth that forms on young oak trees when a wasp lays its eggs.  The ground up powdered oak gall was mixed with water and iron sulphate to make it black."  Bells went off!  Yes, this is the same kind of pen and ink used for writing Torah scrolls. The Romans are given credit for developing oak gall ink, and apparently it was not used on the scrolls at Qumran, but it makes you wonder...

One cannot ride the horse:

Be warned: there is CCTV everywhere—which kind of takes away from the attempt at medieval authenticity—so don't try.

There was a bake house, where one was informed that bread was baked directly on burning embers so the bottom of the loaves was burnt.  Therefore, the upper crust was the best part and reserved for the nobility.  Of course!

In addition to very many rooms, even including an oubliette, there are [formal] gardens:

A bench in sad need of repair, yet it looks quite sweet as it is

I swear, I could barley get through this stile!

I looked up that A Foot in Two Dales event to see how many people actually finished, but the results are not out yet!  I will keep checking. 

July 18, Reeth to Aysgarth

Today's walk was hard, long, and mostly not pretty.  Left Reeth at 5:30, arrived Aysgarth at 1:30.  In a way, the route was like yesterday's Walk One only with an added factor difficulty to about 10.  But first an exciting flower whose yellow is the counterpart, so to speak, of yesterday's purple.  

              

It was the brightest and prettiest thing I saw for the five hours  of moor walking.  Let me complain further: the track was mostly rocks, but you could try to walk on a slim grassy shoulder from time to time.  The downhills were terrible: scree.  At one point there was a divine stretch, here memorialized:

Yes, I loved that bit!

A few vistas:

For sure there used to be industry here.  The rent would have been cheap:

Lead mining?

In a few places, the very first bits of heather were in bloom, but its time for glory is about a month from now:

Even up here sheep find what to eat!

A mountain mivah?

Probably not.

This I can do:

But there was one stream crossing that unnerved me.  It was not difficult to cross, it was knowing whether to cross.  (The blue line indicating the route obscured the skinny blue line indicating stream.) A while back, the route had veered off the stony track to a narrow dirt path, which was a welcome relief in one way, but a difficulty in another.  Those paths are often not very clear, and YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET LOST ON THE MOORS!!  Anyway, I could not see a  continuation of the path on either side of the stream, but I decided to cross it, and baruch haShem, it was the right call.  

Eventually, the moors were left behind.  What a relief!  Then it seemed that many people were coming from the opposite direction.  "Gee, a lot of people are out jogging and walking today," I thought.  But, no!  It was an an event a 50 mile course for which, this year, 150 people signed up to complete!  And let me tell, you, they had plenty and I mean plenty of steep ups and downs to navigate.

I am going to bet that a goodly number will not finish.

Bolton Castle is en route, about four miles from Aysgarth, but I did not have the energy to stop in.  It did look promising, though, so I will make that my excursion for tomorrow.  I think it will be more worthwhile than Newcastle castle!

Sign on a stile that leads to a field (as most stiles do):

En route from the castle to Aysgarth, I saw more dead animals on the path than I have ever seen anywhere!  Euuuh.

Aysgarth is famous for its falls.  These are the lower falls:

And these are the middle falls:

They are less than spectacular right now because there has not been any rain for a while.  I have been here before and remember the roar of the water and the dramatic sight, but not this time!

We'll see about he upper falls tomorrow!

Reeth is a sweet little village built around the Green.  From what I can tell, Aysgarth is a big road.  I was not expecting much in the way of amenities, but from my grocery store research, I had learned that there was a shop attached to the gas station:

I was expecting the usual 7/11 sort of affair, but this is a full service grocery store!  That made me very happy!  And I am staying at a simple, but cheerful place that uses Starlink, and has excellent hot water, and a community frig....since there in only one other person here tonight, I won't have to fight for space.  After a very demanding walk, it feels good just to sit!  I should add that the weather was fine, so at least I was lucky in that way!  It might be a good idea to take a break every now and then, but I rarely do.  Some rethinking required there. 

My watch just ent me a message telling me that there had been a change in my average walking heart rate! I am going to pay attention to that?  Apple is also telling me that I am not burning up very many calories.  It consistently gets the distance wrong, but it does have some good features like telling the time and the date!  And, when I reverse the route, it does not stop telling me, "You are headed in the wrong direction.  You are back on the track," which repeats over and over, but the super annoying thing is that even though the track has been edited to go in the reverse direction, the verbal instructions are for the original direction.  I am telling you, you have to be on your toes all the time!