Today has been looming for months and months. The day of torture, the longest leg of the C2C.....23 miles of potential pain. Surely not that bad, I hear you say. It's pretty flat the whole way, so what"s the problem? Well two things really. Firstly, it's 23 miles after having done 125 already! And secondly, a lot of the flat is on hard ground (tarmac or tracks) and the relentless pounding plays havoc with the feet. But as a wise man once said, 'No Pain, No Gain!'.....the pain being our little tootsies, the gain being our arrival at another beautiful B&B, this time Park House just outside Ingleby Cross.......and that 'just outside' is important later on!

 
We are travelling from Richmond to Ingleby Cross in North Yorkshire, a total of around 23 miles. As it happens, Ingleby Cross is only 15 miles from Middlesborough, the spiritual home of singer, Chris Rea. So with that in mind, I couldn't think of a better title to this entry than 'The Road to Hell'. As Chris said in his worldwide smash hit:

 'This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway,
 Oh no, this is the Road to Hell!'

Now as I was trudging along this seemingly, never ending leg, I thought.........this isn't going to be a long blog entry today. This may be the longest leg of the whole trek, but this could be the shortest entry. But why? Well, the fact is, this 23 mile leg from Richmond to Ingleby Cross may be the longest, but it is also the most boring. So boring that, I only took about 10 photos today compared with my normal 50+. But that was probably a blessing, because any more photo stops would only have meant that our arrival in Ingleby Cross would have taken even longer.

 

We expected to be on the road today for at least 10 hours, so an early start was essential. Breakfast (which was very good indeed) at 6.30, but somehow, we still didn't manage to get away until 8.15. Jane aggravated her knee problem yesterday, so wisely decided to opt out of this leg and catch the Packhorse bus. So it was back to the 3 of us and after a quick stop in Greggs for lunchtime supplies, we were on our way.

The route takes us through the villages of Colburn, Brompton-on-Swale, Bolton-on-Swale, Streetlam, Danby Wiske and also Catterick racecourse. The fact is, none of these places are worthy of any particular comment, at least not from what we saw and the countryside in between, even less so. We were now well and truly out of Swaledale and not yet in the Cleveland Hills and the whole area was pretty flat and uninteresting. 

 

One area of note involved us having to take a detour round the A1 improvement works and all this did was add around a mile to an already long walk! We knew that we had to try and keep a decent pace today and over the first 5 hours, we averaged a pretty good 3 mph. This got us to Danby Wiske, which Wainwright described as a 'low point in his project, in more than just elevation'!, which is probably a little harsh - we stopped for lunch on the green (Tina fell in love with the Greggs's jam doughnuts that we had bought) and then popped in the White Swan for a quick drink. 

 


Trickier than it might sound, cos when we went in the pub, there were no clients and no host. Steve went searching for the landlord, who was out in the back garden and came in to serve us.....the fact that we had failed to notice the buzzer on the bar is a side issue. The one and only time that people might have been jealous of our walk today..........when we manage to have a pub to ourselves, on both sides of the bar. As it happens, the landlord was a lovely guy and very chatty and also, apparently a long sword dancer, whatever that might be!

 

Only 9 miles to go after the White Swan, but we knew this would be a tough 9 miles! The feet were already feeling sore and it would definitely be a case of walking through the pain barrier. So the last thing we wanted was another 'mad cow incident'! Well it wasn't quite as bad as yesterday, but we still had to go through a couple of fields where we needed to skirt round the cows, only to find them looking menacingly in our direction.....perhaps, we might be getting a little paranoid! But to prove a point, we even passed one field where the cows were safely behind a fence, but they still rushed up to where we were, snorting and pushing at the fence......what have we ever done to cows, I want to know!

Two low-lights of this 'leg of low-lights', both involved major trunk roads; crossing the A1 and A19. I've already mentioned crossing the A1, but a least that was by bridge. The A19 was a different matter altogether.....a 'dash' across a very busy dual carriageway, although we did stop to photograph the 'Ingleby Cross 1/2 mile' sign, halfway across! And 'dash' is hardly accurate.......after nearly 23 miles at this stage, it was more like a 'aged hobble'!!

 

And as for that 'Ingleby Cross 1/2 mile sign'. Talk about lifting your spirits one minute and then leaving them in a pile of smouldering ashes the next! It may have been half a mile to the village, but Park House was another mile away after that....and uphill as well!! But, it was worth it. Beverley gave us a very warm welcome and what's more, a greatly appreciated glass of bubbly. Park House is a beautiful property and the rooms were fabulous. It may have been the Road to Hell, but it was definitely 'Heaven' on arrival!!

I did say that this would be a short blog entry, but so much for that. The longest day is over, 24.6 miles walked (with the detour....and, no getting lost!) and just about 150 miles walked to date. Tomorrow, we are back in the hills and on our way to Clay Bank Top......another 12 miles or so.

* I will never walk 24 miles in one day again; never, never, never!;
* In Germany, the jam doughnut is called The Berliner;
* William Hague is the MP for Richmond;