Day 18, 19 Wales to the Dales, Richmond

By patmarkovich20151 month ago

Our travels from Wales to Dales was a long one today. We first had to stop the car at Bristol which meant a drive through Welsh countryside to Shrewsbury, the birthplace of Charles Darwin and then south through Birmingham to Bristol to drop off the car. About 4 hours in total. Our next leg was a 4.5 hour journey by rail (Cross Country) north east to Darlington, which is just north of York.

Some of my thoughts and site along this drizzly day are as follows:

*Fields of sheep, many of which had twins this spring. The fields were loaded with them! *Rock fences around smaller fields but reminiscent of Dales, these crisscross lines across the hilly country were all handmade with the natural rock shale that would have needed to be cleared from the fields. *incredible cloud formations in bleak skies The clouds were fascinating as the sun kept trying to find a slight weakness for it to pop through, * a massive raven rookery as the old oaks have not yet broken into leaf and the leggy shape of the trees together with what’s usually hidden in their branches was revealed along the way, * not too busy for a bank holiday weekend, fortunately the roads were quite clear all things considered,* where is the sunshine that was promised? Brilliant fields of canola… is this our sunshine?

The beautiful hilly Welsh countryside as we drove south east

I had to capture this sky, unfortunately shot through a windshield at 70 MPH!

We made it to Richmond and reunited with our hiking buddies Glenn and Gwen for 4 weeks of glorious hiking and adventure

Couldn’t resist this picture of our 28 lb grandson who’s 3, inspired by the leafs post season series win back home. Go Leafs Go (But keep your hankies close by!)

Our morning had a slow and easy start. Glenn had an appointment so we took our time with breakfast and coffee. Once Glenn was back it was time to go to the Tesco Superstore in Catterick Garrison, just a 10 min drive down the road, to get our provisions for the next few days.

Shopping done, it was off to a local walk to Easby Abbey. First we headed down to the Swale river and walked alongside with several others. Once we came to the falls we noted there must be some kind of challenge for May Day. Either that or there are a lot of locals into the Wim Hof method. For cold therapy ( temperature not the virus!)