August 18, 2000: Blakey to Egton Bridge
Great Fryup Dale
When I looked out the window of my hotel room at the Lion Inn, at 6:00am, all I could see was mist, socking in the hilltop. The sun was trying to penetrate this gloom when I went to breakfast at 8:30, however, so things were beginning to look up on the fifth day of our expedition. The Lees were late. The staff were ironing table cloths in a huge mangle and the other residents were helping themselves to fruit and cereal. I had one more go with the full English, this time getting black pudding on my plate as well. I ordered two ham and one cheese sandwich for our lunches – they even came back labeled for us. The bags were assembled for Sherpa and at 9:45 we were off.
The walk began along the grassy verge of the highway, heading north. By this time we had good visibility and a lot of sunshine, so it was again very pleasant walking. At a standing stone called Margery Bradley we paused for photo taking, but again the shutter would not depress – which made me depressed. There were some other walkers about and one of these had a go. He got the thing to click by a sharp tap of the finger rather than a squeeze – “staccato,” Tosh added. Thereafter I succeeded with this method too, needing it about half the time, though I was a bit worried about the clarity of the picture I was taking while bashing the shutter.
Opposite Margery was a shortcut through the peat up to a second road and, since it was quite dry underfoot, we took it. The other walkers were delayed on this stretch, however, because a member of their party, coming up behind them, had missed this turnoff and they had to call him back. Actually I was a bit surprised to see that the second road was also tarmaced, but there was less traffic on this one as we headed east. After a while there was a second shortcut up to a third road and we took it too, walking among the heather on a springy but fairly dry surface.
After half a mile in a northerly direction we reached a track (unmarked) that headed east to Trough House. The surface of this track was often very rocky and not too nice on the feet but the views to the left into Great Fryup Dale were magnificent and we stopped for a snack near the head of the dale in order to see all the interesting mounds and fields. It was a bit breezy but the skies were sunny and blue.
We then resumed our trod along the Cut Road, gradually heading northeast above the dale and slowly approaching the Rosedale Abbey Road. A lovely view down Glaisdale was the reward here and we decided to stop and sit on the roadbank in order to have our lunch. A Dutch family, who had arrived by car, were mesmerized by the sight of a valley! Celebrating Harold’s 1900th mile, we resumed our walk on the road, climbing a hill on which we could see two slow moving horsemen, and continuing forward on the track down Glaisdale Rigg.
Glaisedale Rigg and the valley below
This was a very easy descent for us, with views of wooded Eskdale improving all the time. A woman in a car was tracking two girls on horses as we reached Glaisdale Low Moor and a family with two Alsatians was trying to launch kites. We followed tracks and then tarmac downhill into Glaisdale, a village that seemed to go on for miles. Harold wanted to buy some stamps so we went into the grocery/post office, where Tosh was also able to buy an Independent. We were now looking for a pub – it was about 2:25 – and I spotted The Mitre across the street, but it looked empty. “Maybe it’s closed,” Tosh said. Here a village woman walking up the street overheard us and offered, “It’s closed for good.” “Ah, how the Mitre have fallen,” I added as we continued downhill – in search of another pub. The road made a long curve back toward the river and all the houses were left behind but I had spotted more buildings ahead of us and so we persevered and reached The Moon and Sixpence – or was it the Angler’s Rest? – since there were signs for both names on this same rather modest structure. (The answer was that the sign painters had disappeared before making The Moon and Sixpence official.)
Tosh asked the lady publican if she were still open and was told that she was open for another half hour – so we entered. They were out of Diet Coke so I switched to the real thing while the Lees had lager and coffee. The Bristol couple were just finishing up and we said our final farewells to them here. The publican’s daughter now took over behind the bar and she was a most engaging and unselfconscious young lady, full of chatter about her proposed trip to Kenya, her efforts to combat cellulite, the purchase of an exercise video, and her attempts to give up smoking. In the end The Maid of Glaisdale said we didn’t have to leave at 3:00 and there seemed to be quite an after-hours crew here anyway, including one man with a facial deformity that required him to drink through a straw.
We left at about 3:10 and continued along the road to the train station. Tosh spent a long time here seeing if we had time for a ride – we didn’t. Then the Lees climbed the Beggars Bridge over the Esk and I took their picture before we all headed into the East Arnecliff Wood, climbing some steps in order to reach a high plateau above the unseen river on our left. Eventually we came up to a road, turning left downhill to wind our way into the lovely village of Egton Bridge. It was 4:00 when we pulled up at the Horseshoe Hotel, where Mr. Boulton was watering the burgeoning garden. He showed us where our rooms and packs were and we climbed two sets of stairs. I had a great view of a little bridge and some exotic fowl but the room was pretty grotty. There was a toilet and shower and I used the latter but I could never get the cold water tap in the sink to budge.
The Horseshoe Hotel, Egton Bridge
Because it was such a beautiful afternoon we all repaired to picnic benches in the garden, which had some giant redwoods. Tosh read her paper and drank another cup of coffee (so did Mr. Boulton at another table) and I wrote postcards. At 5:45 we walked around the bend, over the river, and into the rest of Egton Bridge, where we passed St. Hilda’s gaudy church and located the Postgate pub. I tried to use my mobile here to call Dorothy but failed and used the machine (with some assistance from the inquisitive barlady). After a double Jack Daniels we returned to the river, this time using a double set of stepping stones to return to our hotel, where we had another round.
We had booked a table for 7:00 and had a nice meal. I finally had scampi and chips but there were just too many of the former to eat. The rum and raisin cheesecake was similarly overdone with lashings of cream. Again it was early to bed.
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