August 17, 2017: Millington to Thixendale

Every night, before lights out, Gavan would discretely place on my bedside table a clear plastic box containing ear plugs – just in case his snoring became too oppressive. I never had to use them but it was an altogether new sound that disturbed our rest – the relentless sound of rain drumming on the nighttime roof. By the time we were making our preparations for breakfast this moisture had seemingly come to an end, though it was still gray and damp outside, rather murky.

Knowing that today would be a test for my energies I proposed to Gavan that we adopt an alternate route to our next village, Huggate. This would not amount to a real shortcut but instead of climbing back to the heights on a path that began next to our cottage, we could use the ribbon of tarmac that stretched between Millington and Huggate. Gavan agreed to this strategy, but only in part – for he wanted to rejoin the YWW somewhere along this northeasterly road – at a spot where we would not have that much climbing to do to regain the original route. And so, in full rain gear, we set off at 9:00 exactly.

There was very little traffic and the road was remarkably level. Up on our right we could see the line of the YWW occasionally but mostly we stared at green fields and cattle as we made a steady progress. I would have been just as happy to remain on the road but Gavan, after an hour or so, found a footpath that climbed up to the YWW and so we began our ascent. Almost immediately I was joined in my labors by a flotilla of flies – who fastened themselves to my sweaty body for the next mile. Even a brief return of the rain didn’t discourage them.

Perhaps it is no surprise that Gavan urged me to lead the way, once we had reached more level ground, and so I did, rounding a corner on an eroded path and eventually reaching a road. By turning left on this for only a short distance we reached our original road from Millington once again. Here the YWW makes a long two-sided approach to Huggate so, by resuming our march on tarmac I guess you could say that here we were taking a shortcut.

We arrived in our village about 11:30 so there was no hope that its pub would be open for business but we found a bench on the main street of the town and here we had a rest and a bit of a snack. Road signs informed us that we had come four and a half miles from Millington and that if we wanted to reach the delightfully named Wetwang it would be another four. In fact, about a third of our walk accomplished to this point, we needed to head north through Huggate. As we reached some sheltering foliage Gavan paused for a pee, placing me on guard duty against the return of a lady jogger.

After a brief descent we used the tree-lined access road to climb up to the precincts of Northfield House. From here we dropped down to the floor of a grassy Horse Dale and began a long slog that would take us up to the next possible opportunity for liquid refreshment, Fridaythorpe, at about the two-thirds mark. I must say that I found this stretch hard-going – not just the uphill but the lumpy grassy footing and the need to dodge a number of cows and their calves – with sheep then taking over as the dominant beasts of the field. To add to my discomfiture the sun was now shining brightly and I was still in raingear. There was no place to sit down and I knew I couldn’t get my rain pants off easily without being seated. So I struggled on up, Gavan getting far ahead of me.

We wanted to be certain to get to Fridaythorpe by 2:00 in case its pub had only limited noontime hours and we made it by about 1:30 – Gavan waiting for me as we made our way onto to the first village street. Soon we turned right and Gavan espied The Farmers Arms – it wasn’t just closed it was boarded up in a terminal verdict on our dashed hopes! (Had I paid more attention to the text in my guidebook I would have known this already.)

A village green with a duck pond offered some benches at least and Gavan left me to see what form of refreshment he might find in the petrol station behind the defunct pub. He soon returned with several snacks, a can of Diet Coke, his water bottles re-filled, a pink version of an energy drink (which he administered in an attempt to provide me with a pick-me-up) and, best of all, a cold can of Foster’s lager. So we opened our lunch sack and had a good rest. A local family came down the grassy hill opposite us and dad, using a selfie-stick, posed himself, mom, a toddler and an infant in front of the pond. There was a lot of activity on the surface of this body of water – with tiny mallard ducklings paddling furiously after their parents. One of the adults, spotting an Alsatian in the company of another couple, came up the hill and gave this dog a warning lecture.

As we rose to our feet we passed a sign, erected on the 21^st anniversary of the opening of the YWW and notifying walkers that they had reached the half-way point. We passed a feed mill as our route headed in a westerly direction and dropped down once again to the bottom of a dale – with Ings Plantation on our left. Of course we would have to recover this altitude and so we did, climbing up a smaller dale in pursuit of an odd couple – two women, one pushing a bicycle over the grass and the other attempting to get her horse to carry her up this slope; often she had to get off and lead the animal. There were hundreds of sheep wandering about.

When I reached the top I found Gavan lying on the grass at the roadside at Gill’s Farm. I completed one of my kamikaze collapses to join him but soon a chap in a small lorry pulled up behind us and said, “I didn’t know if you were resting or merely dead.” He introduced himself as the farmer in person and interrogated us about our accents. We thanked him for mowing the grass on which we were lying and then it was time to continue forward. Soon we were descending in a southwesterly direction to the bottom of another valley – though this one had a piece of environmental art, a spiral earthwork at one end. (The YWW with its poetry benches and its occasional sculpture was making a cultural effort on a number of occasions.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately the valley we reached was mostly level this time and we used a track to resume our northerly progress – eventually reaching tarmac again. Here we found a corral for horses and as we were taking pictures a delightful foal came forward to lick the sweat off Gavan’s shirt. This animal was so endearing we had trouble, after many photos, tearing ourselves away – but just a short distance along the road we could enter our nighttime village, Thinxendale (or “Thixie” as our farmer had called it.) It was 5:05 and we had walked eleven and a half miles.

Gavan rounded a corner and asked me for the name of our pub. “The Cross Keys,” I replied and he gave a shout of triumph for our evening’s accommodation bore no pub sign though it did have two wrought-iron keys on its façade. It was not open and we were puzzling what to do next when a female voice on the upper floor said, “Would you like to come around behind?” The voice belonged to Mary, who met us outside an adjacent building where she invited us to remove our boots before showing us up to our room. In this case there were benches to sit on as we undid our laces; on many an occasion I have been asked to remove my boots without such a nicety.

We got ourselves cleaned up after a long day and reported to the now open pub at about 6:00. Here we met co-host Steve, who presided behind the counter, dispensing tinctures and advice with a mordant wit. Among other talents Steve was a problem solver. When we mentioned our anxieties about getting a signal with which to call a taxi at the end of our next day’s walk he suggested we call not a taxi but our host in East Heslerton and, indeed, he picked up his phone and did this himself on our behalf. A little later a walker with a huge backpack and an arm empurpled in tattoo came in and asked if there were any places to camp around here. Steve said he thought there might be and he abandoned his post for five minutes in order to take this chap to a neighbor whose field might be available.

We ordered our evening meal, though I got a chiding for not finishing my huge fish and chips. The pub gradually filled up with locals, all of whom knew our publican. One of these chaps was the manager of a local rapeseed oil enterprise and his product, infused with chili and garlic, was on sale here and we bought some bottles ourselves.

One problem Steve could not solve was the lack of signal in Thixendale. There was no TV in our room and no Wi-Fi either. I decided that I would have to wait until we were better situated tomorrow to send off the daily photos to Linda and Naomi. We didn’t need to watch any TV anyway for we were pretty tired after an eventful day and soon after darkness descended we went to our beds.

To continue with this account you need:

Day 6: Thixendale to Wintringham