Captain's Log

A19

I had a disturbed night’s sleep last night. I’d camped at the Blue Bell Inn at Ingleby Cross which was next door to the busy A172. It felt like its traffic was actually driving through my tent. Somehow, I managed to drift off to sleep. The Terminator said that he used earplugs and it didn’t bother him at all. He packed up a little faster and he set off a few minutes ahead of me. I thought that would be the last I would see of him, but when I reached neighbouring village Ingleby Arncliffe, I found him waiting for me at its crossroad. He'd waited in order to warn me not to follow the C2C fingerpost that was pointing towards my right. Just beyond Ingleby Arncliffe was the dual carriageway of the A19. The C2C administrators didn’t want hikers to cross the road (for safety reasons) and so directed them on a 2.5 mile detour that used a bridge over the road. The Terminator just wanted to inform me that if I didn’t want to do the additional 2.5 miles then I needed to head straight on and cross the dual carriageway. Today was going to be a long day and so of course I didn’t want to walk the extra miles. We both walked on towards the A19. The A19 is a fairly busy road and the traffic does travel fast. It isn’t an M1 or M62 though. As long as you are patient and don’t dither when you cross, there’s really no issue crossing the dual carriage at this point. In fact, we were able to cross straight away on our arrival. This diversion of the C2C to the bridge over the A19 has managed to instill concern and maybe even fear with the hikers walking the trail. Honestly, as long as you are sensible, there’s no problem crossing the road. Of course, if you fancy walking an extra 2.5 miles to avoid it, then that’s up to you. There was a service station on the other side of the dual carriageway and the Terminator headed off to get some breakfast. I’d already had mine and so didn’t bother. As an aside, I’d watched a YouTube video recently where somebody had camped in the grassy area behind the service station (apparently they permit you to do this!). I suspect the pitch would have been even noisier than the one I had last night, although you would be £15 better off. 

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to today’s walk since it was going to be a field-hop and country lane journey over the flatlands between the North York Moors and the Dales. I’m not a big fan of field-hopping since I find that a lot of the time I’m referencing the map to work out my location. I hoped that since the C2C was now a National Trail, the signage over this section would be good. I set off on the trail to find out whether this was true. 

Field-Hopping

The morning became a blur of fields, country lanes and cows. The C2C signage was good, but not perfect. For the most part, my Harvey’s map remained in my pocket. Occasionally I would get it out to check my progress across the page, but the map really wasn’t detailed enough to identify exact locations. Occasionally, a key C2C sign would be absent and I wouldn’t be able to locate myself on the Harvey’s map and so I resorted to the OS map on my phone. Hours started to pass. Once in a while I’d turn around, firstly to see if the North York Moors were getting any smaller on the horizon, and secondly to see if the Terminator was catching me up. It seemed that I made slow progress. I crossed a railway line, making sure to look both ways. In a few fields the farmers had more or less grown the crop over the C2C route and I ended up wading waste high through wheat along the path. In one of these fields I noticed a photographer with a zoom lens taking pictures of me as I waded towards him. He turned out to be a freelance photographer working for the National Trust and said that my photo might be used in their magazine, if I was 'okay with me.' I told him that I didn’t have a problem since I doubted that they’d want to use a photo of somebody with such an ugly mug. 

Danby Wiske

The route avoided villages, but around midday I entered Danby Wiske. The route went past the Church Holme campsite which a lot of hikers use to break this section in half. The campsite also hosted a wonderful honesty cabin, known as Isabel’s Tuck Shop, that was stacked high with all sorts of treats and drinks. You could ring a bell if you wanted coffee making and so I gave it a try. A minute or two later Isabel (presumably) turned up and took my order for an Americano. She went away to make it and I sat at a patio table in order to eat some of the goodies I’d purchased. On her return, we had quite a long chat. She actually grew up in a city area where I finished working and so we talked about the place for a while. I asked if she had any problems with the honesty cafe.
‘Well, sometimes money or goods go missing. I think generally the walkers are fine and they aren't the problem, but some of the local kids have treated it as a free, local tuck shop.' Her husband was ex West Yorkshire Police and so he'd passed on some friendly life advice to some of them. The cafe was a great facility and it amazed me that anybody would abuse it. I stayed for quite a while expecting to hear the clomp of the approaching Terminator on Danby Wiske’s main street, but he didn’t turn up. After about half an hour I decided to move on. 

Field-Hopping Part II

The afternoon was pretty much like the morning and became a blur of fields, country lanes and cows again. I met four Australian EaBos. A woman in the group obviously didn’t like the field-hopping.
‘I just want to get to the end of these damn fields’ she winged.
The morning’s greyness disappeared and the day became sunny. I thought that the landscape actually looked quite pretty and I began enjoying the walk more. I was dutifully following the C2C signage when it disappeared on a country lane. As usual, the Harvey’s map was useless and I was intrigued to find that the OS map put me quite a distance south of my plotted gpx route of the trail. This seemed quite odd since the C2C signage had led me here. I’d later learn that there are alternative routes along this section and I’d maybe found my way on to one. There again, this could be the main route now and my gpx route might be the alternative one. There’d be nothing on the signage that indicated I was following an alternative route. It wasn’t worth stressing over since there were plenty of country lanes and public footpaths to take me in the right direction. At that moment a postman pulled up in his van.
‘Looking for the Coast To Coast Path?’ he asked. ‘There’s a sign for it about 200 yards down the lane.’ He pointed even further southwards. I followed his directions and sure enough a C2C fingerpost pointed me across a field. The route was neither on my Harvey’s map nor on my gpx route (although it was a public footpath on my OS map). I guess the lesson from all of this is…follow the physical signage as far as possible, but if it disappears, then use any other footpath and/or country lane to get back to your gpx plot, Harvey or Cicerone map of the route.     

Soon afterwards, I met a couple of American EaBo women.
‘You sound like you are a long way from home’ I said to them. One of them was from Oregon and the other Alaska.
‘We would rather be here, than at home at the moment,’ one of them told me rather glumly. It was the 4th of July. I guessed they weren’t MAGA supporters.    

A little further on, in the middle of nowhere, I came across a little locker that had ‘Stanhow Farm Comment Book’ written on it with a black marker. I opened it up to find a notebook and biro. The American women had written a few comments in it. Some words of wisdom from Nun Warthead was inserted after theirs.

Bolton-on-Swale

Bolton On Swale was another pretty village on today’s walk. It had a lovely 14th century church. Just outside the churchyard I found a bench and I used it to rest for a while. On its back rest it had ‘Best Kept Village 1967’ engraved on it. I wondered if this was throughout the UK, England or Yorkshire. They were obviously proud of the accolade. The odd thing is, that on tomorrow’s walk, I would find a similar bench in the village of Marske with ‘Best Kept Village 1971’ engraved on it. I found it weird how these relics of competitions still exist over half a century later.     

Bolton-on-Swale was evidently an old quarry area since many of these were now filled with water and converted to nature reserves. The C2C meandered between them and then diverted to the side of the River Swale. The C2C would follow the river upstream across most of the Dales. The river squeezed through a gap in urbanisation between Brompton-on-Swale and Catterick. I spent a frustrating 5 minutes working out how the trail found its way to the south side of the river. It looked like somebody had removed some of the signage which caused the confusion. Once I’d found the path on the south side of the river, there wasn’t a problem and I continued along the riverside westwards. 

St Giles Farm

A mile or so along the river, I came to St Giles Farm, my campsite for the night. It cost £15, with access to a shower and toilet inside the house. The pitching area was a well sheltered lawn of the farm. There was even a patio table. It would have been a lot better if the chickens hadn’t had free run over the camping area and we didn’t have to camp in chicken shit. The patio table was also covered in bird droppings and needed a clean. Apart from that, it was a pleasant enough site. A young, female EaBo was there. She was completing the C2C before she started a medical degree at Swansea. Just after I finished setting up my tent, the Terminator arrived. Tomorrow was going to be a 25 miler  and so I downed a Firepot and went to bed.    

Today’s walk had actually been a lot more interesting and prettier than I was expecting. For most of the day I was able to relax and just follow the signage. Occasionally, some signage was missing or ambiguous and this kept me on my toes. I wouldn’t have fancied doing this section before it became a National Trail; navigation must have been very frustrating.