Richmond is by far the largest town we've passed through,
and has a commanding view of the Vale of Mowbray--the flat terrain that will
occupy the next couple of days. It is an extremely old town, complete with the
castle ruins you see here. We're making a nonchalant start for what is actually
going to be a long day. We also said good-bye to our visitors.
Since this was one of the very few towns on route, Wayne and I went up to get money and lunch. Problem: my bank card password is a word (whose isn't?) but the key pad only has numbers on it! I'm forced to find a scrap of paper and a pencil and map out the letters. It takes 5 minutes, but it works. (After I got back to the US, I noticed that I didn't get the algorithm right (I assumed there was a Z, but no I) but fortunately it didn't upset the map enough to render my translation inaccurate.) We bought local cheeses and bread for lunch, and finally we set off.
Wayne makes the mistake of talking about birds to
some fellow c2c'ers who we've been meeting over the past several days. The guy
says he watched a Kingfisher for nearly a minute. A mile back. One of two birds
Wayne most wanted to see while in England. He's seen
94 others, but not the Kingfisher or the Barn Owl.
Adam and I teach the others how to winnow an ear of corn to separate the wheat from the chaff. Then you chew the grains until the gluten kicks in and turns the wad into "chewing gum."
Walking through wheat, barley, potato fields. No stone
walls, big fat sheep that remind you how mountain-adapted the others have been.
But the tiny villages are pretty. This one, Bolton, sports a monument commemorating
the life of one Henry Jenkins, who lived in the village from 1500 to 1670 (yes,
he's said to have been 169 when he died).
Man, the countryside is flat. We follow a stream crammed with
watercress for over a mile, then four miles of road walking (Wainwright
recommends taking to the roads to get this section over with as
quickly as possible). Cows grazing close to the road are chewing
on such lush grass than you can hear them munching.