East Harlsey

This section of the hike left Richmond and ended at Ingleby Cross. It was 35 km long and is the longest section we will be doing. This section is called the Vale of Mowbray and crossed from the Swale River valley to the Cleveland Hills. It was mostly flat with lots of farming. We saw fields of barley, wheat, corn, rapeseed and hay. The roads and paths were lined with beautiful trees like oak, willow, ash and maple. As has been the case all along, the Coast to Coast avoids large towns and takes the public bridle paths. Many of these paths are rough and consist of squeezing through a stile or going through gates and looking for where the grass or shrubs have been trodden down. The scenery was quite nice though and we had beautiful weather today.
We passed over the Catterick bridge and on the other side walked along the River Swale where the remains of a Roman embankment are still obvious. We also stopped at Bolton-on-Swale and visited St. Mary’s Church, where we saw the monument and plaque to Henry Jenkins, who reputedly lived to be 169 years old. We stopped at Danbe Wiske and had lunch and bought two ice cold cokes. When we got to Ingleby, we had to cross the A19 which is a divided expressway. There was no overpass or underpass! We took our time and dashed to the median and then across. We arrived at our B&B in Ingleby (the Ingleby House Farm) pretty tired. For dinner we went to the Blue Bell pub and saw a few of the other walkers we’ve run in to.Read more