Thanks for Walking With Me!

Welcome to 30WaysofWalking! In 2012, I turned 30 and as a way of working through the frustrations and anxieties of aging, my husband and I decided to walk the Wainwright Coast to Coast, over 200 miles (with detours) across England.

If you’re interested in logistics about the hike, I recommend:

Packing List: What I Wish We Had Taken

Itinerary

A day by day guide of our walk can be visited here.

If you’re more interested in why someone would celebrate 30 by walking  eleven miles on a manure covered path, click here.

Over the course of my adventures in blogging, I was featured on Freshly Pressed for Choosing Books Along The Way and nominated for Versatile Blogger by my readers.

I am currently at work on other writing projects, but will post back updates when I develop a portal for these other works. Please feel free to join the journey and follow along, because I will post an update, soon. Although I am no longer blogging about the Coast to Coast, if you have questions about the walk please feel free to leave a comment and I will get back to you. Thanks for reading and following along!

Dedication

Today I awoke to the joy of freshly piled snow and the euphoria of an unexpected cancellation at work. I reveled in lying in bed for a few extra hours as my unfortunate husband had to get up at six and put on his tie and jacket. To be home, alone, to work on my projects was a joyous gift until I checked my Facebook feed to see that Misty was dying. In my first blog post on 30WaysofWalking I wrote:

My list making was interrupted on four different occasions in the past year. Through both Facebook and some face-to-face gossip, I learned that four friends, from different parts of my life, had died or were diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Therefore I have known for over a year that Misty was going to die. She is thirty, just like me. We were married only days apart. I sent her a check when her best friends and her newlywed husband sent word through my inbox of an auction to pay for her medical bills; she was too sick to continue teaching and had lost her health insurance. I sent her a handwritten note, but by the time it arrived, she was too sick to respond.

Facebook is such a funny thing. I recently finished The Fault In Our Stars a story about two terminally ill teenagers who speak in erudite and witty dialogue about the way Facebook commemorates the dead. Hesitant to be, as they describe, someone who is a voyeur to Cancer I found myself struggling all day with what to say if anything, and analyzing if I were to write -who am I writing for? We were college friends who did not remain in touch other than through casual contact on social media.  If I were at work today, I might not have realized she was passing.  Since I was snowbound today, every hour or so I found myself logging back on to read and to check her status, which was updated by a friend at her bedside. How odd is it that even our dying is broadcast on social media?

As an editor she published some of my earliest poems and was the catalyst for many parts of my life as a writer.  Moving away from poetry and toward a less promiscuous genre, I have been at work on several essays this year. As I await a reply on my queries and continue to work on my manuscript I am haunted by the texts that she will not write and curious if her closest friends will make an effort to posthumously publish her work.
Blogs are not books. These musings might never reach a broader audience, but these posts are for Misty. In her honor, dear reader, take a long walk and revel in each step.

Wildly Walking Home

In an earlier post I had mentioned that I wanted to create a bibliography of resources. Two accounts of creative non fiction to which I would like to draw your attention are Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Simon Armitage’s Walking Home.

Upon the recommendation of those who responded so vehemently to Choosing Books Along The Way, I decided to read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. Strayed’s memoir is of her solo hike on the American Pacific Crest Trail, several thousand miles. Obviously, our walk was far less strenuous, but it was really the perfect read for this sort of trip. Where I could not personally relate to some of the darker issues Strayed explored while on her trek to heal herself of the devastating loss of her mother and the self-inflicted wounds of adultery and drug abuse, her reflections on long distance walking resonated in a way that I would not have been able to appreciate had I not hiked the Wainwright. She personified her pack, affectionately referring to it as Monster and observes that as the trip progresses she begins to develop an innate organizational system with the pack. This is something one cannot truly understand without participating in the process of long-distance walking. I was very fortunate to meet Cheryl Strayed at a reading in Manhattan after our return to the States. We spoke briefly about long distance walking and the importance it has for mental rejuvenation. In person, she is very charismatic and funny, and her prose follows suit.

Simon Armitage is someone I studied in school and forgot; however, in the US he is not a well known poet, but rather literary folks know him for his translations of the Odyssey and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While spending the night in Grasmere, I saw a flyer in our hotel for The Wordsworth Trusts’ Poetry Series at St. Oswald’s Church (where Wordsworth is buried). The reading that Tuesday was for Simon Armitage and all it said underneath was “THIS READING SELLS OUT QUICKLY; BOOK AHEAD.”  In tiny print at the bottom of the page it said that some tickets would be released the day of the performance for limited view seating. Now it was the day of the reading and being a New Yorker used to waiting in three or four hour lines for the possibility of tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, I had an overwhelming and desperate urge to rush to the ticket booth. At 8:30am I was the only one in Grasmere on line and the tickets we bought, which were cheaper because they were day of, were in perfect sight of Armitage. The Church was crowded, but to my relief it was a manageable mass, with plenty of open seating remaining should someone have walked up to the door at 8pm at the start of the performance. Armitage’s poetry was hip and narrative and engaging. He was shortlisted as Britain’s Poet Laureate and is a national favorite on the school curriculum. We were instantly enchanted by his words. He read selections from his latest book, Walking Home, about walking the far more rigorous Pennine Way trail, in the reverse direction, with the wind at his face. Armitage’s schtick is that he will walk as a Troubador with no money and will rely upon whatever funds or generosity is bestowed upon him for his poetry. Each night after walking a leg f the route, he will offer a free public reading. I purchased a copy of Armitage’s memoir and when I met him after the reading, told him about our trip. He was polite, but less enthused. On my train ride to Manchester, I was reading his memoir and couldn’t help but giggle when I came to this passage:

“The Pennine Way might be the first, the mother-of-all, the Route 66 and the Trans-Siberian Railroad of long-distance walks, but it is also an un glamorous slog among soggy, lonely moors, requiring endurance and resolve. As such, it faces stiff competition from those newer leisure trails rich in car parks, information centres, tea shops, gift shops and conveniences of all kinds, with celebrity-chef restaurants and four-star accommodation along the route, plus significant termini at each end, such as national borders or the sea.” (Armitage 67).

I suppose the Coast to Coast is a boutique walk, but nonetheless, Armitage’s encounters with bulls and farmers and bog were all very meaningful to me as I reflected back on our trip.

Leaving Robin Hood’s Bay

Our hotel was a Victorian themed place and I use the word theme because it seemed to be a bit more Disneyfied and we found some of the decor to be a bit off-putting. The rooms featured faux electric candles and the TV was framed in a golden mirror; when turned off you could actually look into it as a mirror. We did watch the EastEnders Olympic episode on the Victorian mirror and as someone who intermittently enjoys it, two seasons behind in the States, it was fun to get a glimpse into future storylines.

In the evening we spent our time slowly packing and trying to weed out any unnecessary items before planning for the schlep bag to Manchester. We would be taking the bus to Scarborough, followed by a train to York and then a train to Manchester. Robin Hood’s Bay does not have a train, so bus is really the only option. There are trains, however, that run direct from Scarborough to York, but to save a little money we booked in advance and a took a longer route. If you find yourself in our position and you need to take the bus from Robin Hood’s Bay, be sure to get up early and take a bus before 9am. The buses after 9am are the pensioners buses and the pensioners ride for free. Now this is a lovely idea and I wish that we had the same in the States, but this means that the buses are packed. Upon boarding the bus we became intimately reacquainted with the Fast Walking Bacon Eaters, because there was simply no room to sit and we stood up with all of our bags for 45 minutes facing the opposite direction of the driver. After three weeks without automobile transport, to standup like that, while the driver sped up and down windy country roads, we nearly lost our full English breakfast many a time.

We also did not anticipate how lovely the town of Scarborough would be and wished that we had more time to explore. The bus from St. Bee’s takes you right to the Scarborough station. We were about an hour early and the town is very walkable with lots of shops. It was difficult to get about with our luggage, so we took turns watching the luggage and exploring.

Arriving in Manchester, we were instantly saddened. We had booked at the Bewley’s and after our lively three week adventure we were not eager to become reacquainted with suburban sprawl. We could see the Bewley’s from the train station, it was maybe a quarter of a mile away, but the highway sprawl made it impossible to navigate. Instead we had to call for a shuttle and be taken back to the hotel. The hotel itself was like all corporate chains: cold and impersonal. I am not quite sure of the UK rules on smoking in hotels, but this hotel reeked of cigarette smoke. We didn’t want to stay inside our room a minute longer than necessary. When booking this trip, we imagined that we would be too tired to do any sight seeing in Manchester, but we were still itching to travel and explore.

There are many fabulous museums in Manchester, but they were all closed by the time we arrived. I took some time in the lobby to examine some brochures and came across one for The Cornerhouse, a four story building with unique artists spaces. There was a bookstore, a locally sourced cafe, an art theatre, and two floors of exhibition space. David Shrigley, whose work “How Are You Feeling Today” on the Highline, which I mentioned in an earlier post will have an exhibition there in September. This was the perfect place to explore before the end of our trip. If you do come to visit via Manchester Airport, take the train to Manchester Oxford Rd. We took the train to the city center and it adds quite a bit of a walk.

Manchester was a good immersion back to city life, as we would be back in the bustle of NY in less than a day. It was that weird feeling you get at the end of a vacation where you don’t want it to end, where you want to keep exploring, like Huck on the raft; you don’t want to go home and face the reasons you left in the first place.

Egton Bridge to Robin Hood’s Bay

 

In the morning in Egton Bridge we awoke with mixed feelings. As difficult as the journey had been, we didn’t want it to end. The proprietors made us a delicious breakfast in their conservatory (which we have decided is a must have for our future home).  Then we gathered our things and were on the road once more.

Although it was not intended to be this way, the final day’s walk is a bit of an encore of all the trickiest bits of the previous days. There is elevation gain, muck, mud, midges, bog, and road walking. By this point though, we were used to these different challenges and without too much profanity, navigated them with confidence. We found ourselves stopping at the Hare and Hounds in Hawkser, just before Robin Hood’s Bay because we wanted to stretch our our final moments on the trail.

The walk along the coast was much easier than I had anticipated; it was far less steep then the walk along St. Bee’s Head. Although the first days of the walk in the Lake District were so very difficult, I am glad to have experienced them first. I imagine that they would have been a frustrating surprise toward the end of our walk.

The photo above is the first image I saw upon entering Robin Hood’s Bay; we had arrived!

As prescribed by Wainwright, we walked down to the shore and threw the pebbles we had collected from St Bee’s Head and carried with us along the way into the North Sea.

We spent the afternoon into the evening at The Bay Hotel, Wainwright’s Bar, drinking, eating and perusing the guest book. We were happy to see the L&B had made there way several days earliar, as did the family from Singapore. We never learned the proper names of the Fast Walking Bacon Eaters, so we couldn’t discern whether or not they had arrived. I knew in two days M&G would be adding their names to the registry as well. If you find yourself walking this way, you’ll find me under a different name, but you will know me by 30WaysofWalking.

Blakey Ridge to Egton Bridge

The next morning in Blakey Ridge we were reunited with the fast-walking bacon eaters and although they were no M&G, it was nice to see a familiar face just the same. We began with a bit of road walking and the heather, which I understand is usually in full color later in the season, was beginning to show its purple.

When we initially organized the trip, we thought that the long stretch to Blakey Ridge might just be too much and we might need to have a light day to accompany it. We didn’t realize the contagion of walking and the way that your body heals itself over night and leaves you eager to walk again the next day. We strolled into Egton Bridge by about 1pm, an hour before our luggage.

On the road I had noticed that a street sign indicated it was six miles to Whitby. As literary Anglophiles, we knew that Whitby had a connection to Bram Stoker’s Dracula; however, it was a connection we made after arranging our trip, otherwise we would have wanted to find a way to include it as a post-trip excursion from Robin Hood’s Bay. It was serendipitous that we arrived in Egton Bridge early enough to have a day trip and when a few paces later I saw a sign for commuter rail, I begged my husband to consider an excursion.

For those of you who may be a loyal follower of 30WaysofWalking, you might remember that I had been initially concerned when The Old Mill Egton Bridge did not appear on any search engines. We are happy to report that The Old Mill was one of our favorite B&Bs. We were the only guests and the establishment had been recently renovated. It was gorgeous on the inside, the room was humongous and my husband was thrilled because there was a giant flat screen TV with real cable.  The proprietors were so kind and offered us a train schedule and helped us to plan our trip to Whitby.

We quickly changed our clothes and headed on board the commuter rail to Whitby. The ride was short, only about 20 minutes. The seaside town of Whitby was crowded on this gorgeous July day and we were eager to be out and about in the sun. To complete our literary pilgrimage we climbed the 99 steps up to Whitby Abbey, which towers above the town. After the joy of abbey hopping and exploring along the C2C walk we were a bit shocked to find Whitby Abbey as part of the National Trust and at twelve pounds per person (almost $50 for the two of us) we opted to take photos outside, rather than go in. The steps and the Abbey are referenced toward the end of Stoker’s Dracula.  As a scholar my husband was excited to find the memorial to Caedmon’s in the Whitby cemetery. Caedmon, whom I had forgotten from my coursework, was an illiterate stable hand in the who through divine intervention composed the first alliterative verse poem in Old English, aptly titled Caedmon’s hymn.

We spent the remainder of our time poking in and out of tourist shops and giggling at all of the ridiculous Dracula paraphernalia and extreme gothic marketing. It appears Whitby is the place to be for Halloween.

On the train ride back we enjoyed the views of each picturesque seaside town and again were a bit saddened to know that tomorrow would be out last walk.

Osmotherly to Blakey Ridge

The morning in Osmotherly was bittersweet. We were saying goodbye to our friends M&G over breakfast. They were spending a sight-seeing day in Osmotherly and our paths were not to cross again. It’s incredible how quickly you become attached to people on the trail. At first I wasn’t sure if we would cross paths at breakfast because breakfast was at 7:30 am, only. As it would be a rest day for them, they might want to sleep in. I was delighted when I realized that they had elected to get up early on their rest day to have breakfast with us!

As we were packing our bags to leave, my husband casually mentions that today would be the longest day at 22 miles. Actually, he initially told me 20 miles, and then the proprietor of the B&B corrected him, by adding the two miles for which we were off-route. My husband, whose countenance rarely displays a look of dissatisfaction or disapproval gave her a scowl. This is one of the delightful things about  taking a long distance walk or hike: your base emotions rise to the surface.

Since we were going to have a 22 mile day, we decided to pace ourselves in such a way so that we could stop for two lunches. We would split the first packed lunch a third of the way into our journey and eat the second lunch on two thirds of the way into our journey. We would walk up three undulating hills with an elevation gain of roughly about 2800 ft. The photo above from atop our first hill offered a glimpse of the North Sea, our final destination.  We ate our first lunch together examining this view, both exhilarated and a bit saddened that the walk was almost through. Upon completing the third hill, we were still not two thirds of the way through our day’s walk. Although I was still hungry, we pressed on.

We began one of our most solitary walks along an abandoned railway line that led into the North York Moors. I enjoyed this type of flat, isolated walking the most. Although I was sure that we were about due for our second lunch break, my husband pressed forward. When an hour later we still had not stopped, I was a bit annoyed and a bit nervous that perhaps 22 miles was longer than it felt. When our hotel, The Lion Inn, the only hotel and pub for miles, was in sight, my husband proclaimed that now was the time to sit together and eat. I was a bit cross, but we sat together and ate and enjoyed the quiet view.

As we strolled onward to the hotel, which boasts rooms dating back to the 16th C. , my husband casually turns around and says, “you know today there was an Adder.”

I could feel myself getting a bit queasy and dizzy at the thought of it. Although he wasn’t exactly sure that he had seen one, he had read a poster on a North York Moors National Park board that explained we were in prime Adder habitat and breeding grounds and to be extra careful not to disturb them. Once my husband had read this sign, he was afraid to sit down for lunch somewhere, because he knew that if I had an encounter with the Adder, he would be carrying me the remaining miles to Blakey Ridge. This is perhaps one of the things I like best about him: he knows when to keep his mouth shut.

Danby Wiske to Osmotherly

Upon leaving Danby Wiske, we headed on to what was supposed to be our last day of mud and muck and manure. The flatlands between the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors were a relief when we read about them in the guidebook, but in practice, they were far more difficult then I had imagined. Walking through the fields of wheat, as pictured above, was one of the most relaxing parts.

Now my husband is a man of a few, carefully chosen words, and for most of this walk, we walked in relative silence. This is also because he is much more sure-footed then I am and was usually several paces ahead of me. Although we had initially tried to walk side by side, it proved best for us to simply walk at our own paces. As he was the one with the Stedman guide, he was the one most aware of what lay ahead on the trail. After almost a decade together he knows that there is certain information that should be presented to me on a need to know basis, only. Today and tomorrow on the road to Blakey Ridge, he expertly exercised this discretion.

Upon exiting the wheat fields, on a downward slope at the end of the foot path, he casually turned around and said, “there’s a little road here that we’ll need to cross together.”

My husband was beginning to mimic Stedman’s use of understatement. This was no little road, it was the A19, which for my American readers is the equivalent of a major interstate like I81.

Prior to taking this trip, dear reader, you may remember that I am petrified of snakes and my biggest fear was encountering the Black Adder. Almost fifteen days into the trip and I have yet to see or hear of anyone else seeing an Adder. What I had not expected prior to my trip was that the thing I would fear most would be traffic, a fear so unique there is not even a phobia word to describe it (Ex: Ophidiophobia is the fear of snakes). My fear is not all that unprecedented, I grew up in a part of NY noted for its aggressive driving, and most people, myself included, had been hit by a car at one point or another, and nothing scares you straight like looking into the coffin of a classmate hit by a reckless driver, so suffice to say, cars beat snakes in the never-ending battle for most pressing phobia.

My husband who is very calm and rational said that we should wait for an opening, run to the divider and then repeat the process. I can feel myself beginning to cry, but I hold back because nothing makes him more nervous and upset then to see me cry. A clearing presents itself and we run. A farmer in a tractor is trying to turn at about the same point, which my husband, whose geometric thinking increased exponentially as the trip progressed, figured it would be a safety point for us as we raced across the second part of the meridian.  Instead of explaining this to me, my husband ran and I was left alone on the divider.

This is the one and only time on the whole trip where I broke down into tears.

After several minutes of wild gesticulation across the highway, an opening presented itself and I ran. Our anxieties running high it was the perfect opportunity to hit up the next pub: the Blue Bell Inn in Ingleby Cross.  After a couple of shots, we were ready to head back on the trail.

The road to Osmotherly overlaps with The Cleveland Way, a British National Trail that is incredibly well maintained. The Coast to Coast is a series of Public Footpaths, Bridle-ways, and regulars roads that Wainwright connected to create a Coast to Coast path, but it is not an officially recognized trail. There are very few signs or way-markers to let you know that you are still on the trail. It was such a pleasure to walk The Cleveland Way and know that you are headed in the right direction.

Osmotherly is a lovely, lovely town, that is two miles off route but well worth the stay. We were lodged at Moon House, a very cozy B&B next door to the sophisticated and incredibly delicious Three Tuns Restaurant. If for no other reason, The Three Tuns is worth the trip to Ostmotherly. It has a really hip decor and the fresh bread, Swaledale Cheese, spicy tomatoes and uniquely inspired pasta dishes are so exciting after days of pub lasanga made with cheddar cheese. We went to sleep relaxed and refreshed, unaware of what adventures lay ahead tomorrow.

Richmond to Danby Wiske

Upon hearing that we were headed to Danby Wiske, the popular consensus seemed to be: don’t rush, there’s nothing there. We took an alternate route that would allow us to spend some time at Easby Abbey, which is located just outside of town about a mile or so walk from The Station. Unlike Shap Abbey, the ruins at Easby are much more substantial, similar to Tintern Abbey in Wales. This is one of the few free English Heritage sights, so we took our time exploring all of the different sides and crumbling walls, taking photo after photo.

As we headed back onto the path, we spent significant time road walking, something with which I am still not comfortable. We found ourselves stopping in a church in Bolton on Swale to see the Henry Jenkins memorial of the town’s oldest resident, perceived to have been 169 when he died. The church left a big box of Coca-Cola and bottled water inside the rectory for walkers passing by and invited you to put a push pin on a map to show where you were from. We had yet to meet any other Americans on the trail. We had heard from others that there was a couple from Kentucky, who sort of became these mythical figures to us. Each time someone heard that we were from the US, they would mention the courageous walkers from Kentucky who were making their third attempt at the Coast to Coast. The first year, the husband broke his ankle in the Lake District. The second year, the wife had to be rescued on the moors. With each person we encountered, the story grew longer and more detailed and more horrific.

I am not sure how scientific the data is at the church in Bolton on Swale, especially since I couldn’t discern whether or not the push pins represented walkers from this year or walkers from whenever they decided to create the push pin map. Nevertheless, the Eastern part of the US was well represented. Perhaps this is because its an easier flight to the UK, but for a moment it made me wish that we were still living in Oregon so that I could have placed a pin on the more barren West Coast. Although we weren’t encountering any Americans, it seemed that they were omnipresent.

The road to Danby Wiske was just as mucky as the road to Reeth and yet again, my knees to my toes were covered in manure. As we walked we encountered a yong family with three daughters ages 12-14, one of whom had special challenges. They were Australians living in Singapore who decided to take a walking holiday before attending a wedding on the continent. Over the course of our entire trip, we had seen two other families, but their children were proper teenagers. They were a lovely family and I was so deeply impressed by the children’s manners. Their walking schedule was much more demanding then ours, but they were handling it with ease and grace.

We entered Danby Wiske and got settled in at the only pub, the Swan, for dinner and drinks, sitting next to a sextagenarian couple. They inquired whether we were walkers and by their accents, I realized immediately that they were American. I asked: By chance, are you from Kentucky? This startled them because although they currently lived in Kentucky they were born in different regions of the States and did not have a Kentucky accent. I explained their infamy, which as it turns out were tales grossly exaggerated. In a few moments we were having a lively exchange and realized that we were staying at the same Bed and Breakfast (which is not all that uncommon, given that there were only three nearby Bed and Breakfasts). Our good friends, M&G, who had taken an extra rest day and Reeth, arrived and we were reunited once again! The bonds you form on the trail are deep and wide. We greeted one another the way you would greet favorite relatives. M gave me a little handmade sheep from a craft booth in Richmond as a parting gift because we knew that after tomorrow’s walk to Osmotherly we would part ways for good. When we inquired whether they would be the third, and final, guest at our B&B, we were disappointed to realize that they would be staying elsewhere.

As we wandered back to our B&B that night, the third couple was just checking in. It was the Canadian couple from our walk to Reeth where I had so kindly dropped the F bomb, as I fell in the manure.

Reeth to Richmond

The road to Richmond was quite enjoyable, if for no other reason then the knowledge that we were to take a sight-seeing day and would have a chance to rest and do some laundry.  Now I forgot to mention this in my post about Grasmere, but we needed to desperately do some laundry in Grasmere. When I asked the overly helpful desk assistant, the one who cheefully told me about the 15 mile walk to the free spa, about laundry she curtly replied: Ambleside. I explained that I was willing to pay for either a self or full service wash, but she maintained that I would have to walk several miles to Ambleside if I wanted to do my laundry. Now Grasmere is Disneyland of the Lake District and I refused to believe that there was no where that one could do their laundry. I immediately went back to my room, flipped through the hotel directory and found an add for the very upscale Wordsworth Hotel and Spa (where I might add, the spa is actually located inside the hotel) and inquired about laundry. One thing I have learned growing up in NY is that where there is money, there are services unimaginable to those who lack it. Well, of course the Wordsworth Hotel was more than happy to do our laundry and fold it and press it and yes, we did pay a price I am too embarrased to admit online, but it was possible to do laundry in Grasmere. Headed into Richmond the proprietor at the West End Guest House, one of the most friendly and lovely women you will ever meet, said the magic words “and if you have any laundry that you would like done, leave it in this bag and I will take care of it while you’re sight-seeing.”

The photo above is our first view into Richmond and the first moment we realized that we were on the down swing of the trip; an exhilarating. yet very sad feeling. I was delighted to see signs of urban sprawl, at first, and was particularly excited to view the community garden plots, or allotments, as the British call them. After two days in Richmond; however, I was eager to get back on the path and head out of town. I appreciated the isolation of the trail and how distinctly different it was from all other aspects of my life.In Richmond there is much to do. Here are my lists of things you must do if you find yourself walking this way:

1) Walk the castle walls and spend some time at their exhibit on conscientious objectors who were imprisoned in the castle during WWI.

2) Visit the Richmondshire Museum (home of the All Creatures Great and Small exhibit and a delightfully funny exhibition of children’s reflections upon visiting the Richmondshire Museum). Donate generously, if you do visit, they have limited funding and rely heavily upon the generosity of a devoted volunteer staff.

3) Head our to The Station, the Victorian train station that has been revamped as a movie theatre/ice cream parlour/ foodie eatery called SEASONS/art gallery.

4) Stroll around Easby Abbey (more on this in the next post

5) Tour the original Georgian Theatre (we tried and couldn’t seem to find out when the tours occurred. If you figure this out, feel free to drop us a line below).

In terms of meals, nothing was particularly striking, although you do have plenty of different options. The best food was our breakfast at West End Guest house, complete with chocolate croissant and a convivial atmosphere between guests, many of whom frequent the Guest House on a regular basis and have come to know one another quite well. The folks at West End are truly some the kindest you will meet. We had an altercation with the door to our room; my husband broke the key inside the door. HE spent a good twenty minutes or so plying the broken key out with a pair of tweezers. The proprietor didn’t bat and eye when we explained the situation, nor were we charged any additional fees. In fact they gave us a bag of Yorkshire licorice candies for our troubles! Never before have we vacationed somewhere with such gregariousness.