Bolton on Swale

That’s Day 11 done and dusted on the Coast to Coast Path. A dead flat stroll from Richmond city to Danby Wiske – with views of the Richmond Castle Walls as we left town!

We kicked off the day with a breakfast at The Buck, and then visited a few shops in time to pick up things we needed – like blister bandaids (I am going though mine quick), a new charging cord (I left mine in a BnB), a new book for Shar, and provisions for lunch.

At just before 10am we kicked on the Hiiker digital map, let the family know we were heading out and that’s what we did! Down Richmond town centre, across the river at Richmond Falls and again made Swale River our bestie (on the left this time) for much of the morning.

The first part of the walk was a fantastic path though a large park in the city outskirts – we don’t get to see much forest on the Coast to Coast so any chance is welcome!

Just out of town we had the ‘pleasure’ of the path running through a lengthy field with a bull in it AND it ran along side a rather obvious sewage plant. Lovely! We did not see the bull – phew! We did smell the sewage – ew!

At double time we were out of that field of stank in no time, and entered another long forest stroll. Looks like this area is used to train troops. You could see a couple of signs off with land nav exercise info but we did not see any actual troops in our travels.

Hoping we were done with Warning Signs for the day, we started the more expected landscape of the day – fields!

Kicking it off with my most favourite, a walk through a wheat field. You can take the girl out of Alberta, Canada but … well, you know how the saying goes.

(If your look very close in this wheat field photo you will meet Melvin – please pronounce with a lisp. He is a wool felted Beaver that Shar made to give away on our travels to say ‘thanks from the Canadians’ but promptly fell in love with his oddities, frizzy mullet and cuteness and now he is her traveling companion. You may spot Melvin from time to time in other photos!)

Oh not quite done with those Warning Signs yet. As we passed by the Catterick Bridge town there was a couple of old quarries now full with water … where we learned swimming in cold water can kill. Did you know? The signs here are epic! It looks like a movie poster.

At just over half way we walked into Bolton-on-Swale (not Brompton-on-Swale a hamlet also very close) and found our way to St Mary’s Church which offers a cool respite from the heat, and a cold drinks and chocolate honesty box.

To our absolute surprise they also had a little kitchen to make tea and coffee, a washroom and not just your run of the mill honesty box! The drinks and chocolate were in a fridge, and they offered a bunch of other food items too. The church also has a little table and chairs to enjoy it at. Yes please! We put in our donation, each grabbed a cold drink or chocolate, and sat down at that lovely table to enjoy our lunch break.

As we sat a few other Coast to Coast walkers came in to check out the church, honesty box and washroom. Striking up a chat with each around the usual ‘where are you from’, ‘did you walk from x town today’, ‘are you doing the whole C2C’, etc. Loads of locals lately, a lot of Australians and one US guy. We have yet to meet any other Canadians.

One couple told us that they were chatting with an older, local chap who said to look for wooden church mice in the church. He said when the wood working was being done, a few were added in as a little secret. A look about and we found quite a few! How exciting!

Thanks to Google, we found out they were made by a woodworker from mid 1800s call the Mouseman (Robert Thompson). He added these mousey touches to wood working in churches and abbeys all around the Yorkshire Dales area. In fact, the tradition lives on and you can buy Mouseman things, still find it in new works, etc. I will be looking at the next few churches a little more closely. Adorable!

After an amazing break and making sure we left our little church spot better than we found it, we had a few more fields to cross and a few more friends to meet, this time of the bovine variety. Shar named her Ellis and we almost had to leave Shar behind she was so enthralled. Eventually she realized we had walked away and came running.

Then it was our 5.2km tarmac section – a couple of us put our ear pods in and tuned into a podcast, and a couple of us had a nice long chatty chat to pass the time. It was a very, very quiet road so that was fantastic. I think we saw a couple of cars, a frog, a caterpillar, and a woman on a bike (twice) the whole time – so more like a path than a road really.

This tarmac route is what I have as the original C2C route in the Trailblazer Edition10 and Harvey Maps. However we noticed what was called the alternative through Ellerton is the way the brand new C2C signs are pointing to follow. So this Ellerton route is likely the new way to go and avoids some tarmac walking but its description in the books does not sound any better. While tarmac can be fast walking it can also be soul sucking especially on black tarmac, in boots, and in the heat! Maybe the C2C Team has made further adjustments to this new Ellerton way.

After the tarmac, we pass through a few more fields, by a few more farms and just like that we had arrived in Danby Wiske.