Day 8 - Walking the Footpaths & Dinner

In the morning we wanted to get in our first earnest walk on the famous English footpaths. We started in the nearby lovely village of Thorton-de-Dale. We quickly left town and walked on a few deserted country roads, before entering onto some true footpaths. Of course, the footpaths are filled with various gates and stiles so you can get into and out of the pastures and fields. The thing I love about walking the English footpaths is the variety. Sometimes you are walking on public land and other times the land is private. On this particular walk we walked on narrow lanes, through woods, across bridges, through sheep pastures and along the streets of small villages. The British love their countryside and we saw many people, and their dogs, walking the footpaths. As usual, we stopped for tea as we got back into town.

In the afternoon, we stopped for a traditional Sunday dinner at a nearby country pub, the Fox and Rabbit Inn.

We are getting a couple of reactions from Jim and Suzanne on the driving on the opposite side of the road in England. Jim gets into the front passenger seat on the left side and immediately tries to put his foot on the brake. Suzanne is in awe of me driving because everything is backwards and appears to be chaotic, especially at the scores of traffic circles. In all honestly, having driven in England before, I find the skills come back after a few days andit becomes almost second nature.

I’ve include a video today of us walking along one of the quiet country lanes.Read more