Coast to Coast: Reeth to Richmond, 11 miles, Thursday 17th June

And so begins another stroll on an exceptionally sunny day, darkened only by the fact that the effects of Spike’s bout of food poisoning experience are beginning to return.

The walk to Richmond turned out to be exceptionally easy, starting with a gentle stroll along the banks of the river Swale, followed by an easy climb up Whitcliffe scar before finally descending gradually into Richmond.

We completed the stretch in just under five hours, a record time for us so far.

As you can guess, the walk was uneventful save for the occasional sympathy stop for Spike’s benefit. We passed Captain Beaky and his wife, and The American ladies (Yanks #1 & #2), who appear to be following us again. No sign of Striding Man though.

An early finish to the walk meant more time to explore Richmond and its hostelries. But first off was our own hotel, The Buck Inn, which you might recall featured in an earlier blog, when we dropped off the cars before bussing it to St Bees.

We wasted no time in shrugging off rucksacks and freeing our feet from hiking boots, and the first Black Sheep ale (my favourite) was gone in a few seconds. I took my time over the second one, after which we checked in and freshened up. 

I suppose you’ll be wanting to know if our room is over the quiet Snug or the heavy metal football bar. Well I can now reveal that in fact our bedroom is above the Snug, where the old Yorkshiremen reminisce over pewter mugs of ale, and not the football bar with the wall to wall plasma TV screens bashing out twenty four hour MTV or football. So that’s a result.

It’s also the best room so far on the trip, and very dog friendly. So I take back any comments I may have made earlier. However we still have to endure the England v Turkmenistan match tomorrow night (we are staying here two nights) so final judgement will be passed when we check out.

Then it was time to explore Richmond, which took about ten minutes, so we retired to the Kings Head pub in the Market Square, for some more refreshment. Sadly the beer was John Smiths, served in a plastic glass, and food wasn’t on offer. We didn’t stay long there, and shortly found a few more convivial pubs.

We bumped into the American Ladies in the town, who took a photo of us. They will not be stopping in Richmond for a rest day, but plan to be in Robin Hood’s Bay on the same day as us, so that’s where we’ll no doubt meet up with them once more.

Dinner was the much anticipated indian cuisine, at the very pleasant and highly recommendable Amontola Tandoori restaurant, where a few Kingfishers (my favourite indian lager) were consumed. It was obvious that Spike was well into recovery mode by now.

After a nightcap on the way back to the Buck Inn, we finally retired at around midnight, the latest we’ve managed to stay awake till, so far.

Tomorrow is a rest day, so further exploration of Richmond will be carried out. It’s also Emma’s birthday, which I’m sure will need celebrating somehow.