Miles walked today: 15

Total trip miles: 114

Elevation gain: 898 ft.

Accommodation: The Burgoyne Hotel

So today was to be an easy 11 mile trip to Reeth but Nancy and I ended up walking 15 miles which was a bit more than we planned on. We left Butt House at 8:30 and arrived in Reeth at 4:30, ready to be done for the day. This wasn’t because of any errors on our part. We started out of Keld and I knew it would be a great photo-taking day when we came upon the waterfalls. The trail was then up along the side of the hills where we had wide views of the Swale River and the valley with its green fields, endless miles of stone walls, and countless ruined and intact stone barns.

After we had gone about three miles, we made the choice to go off trail to the sweet little village of Muker. We visited there in 2015, but we wanted to go again, it was such a beautiful walk. On the way to Muker, we crossed the river on a narrow bridge and then walked on a flagstone path through several meadows. (We had to go through a “squeeze” stile between each meadow, and they really are a squeeze to get through!) I was a little disappointed at first because I remembered from before that the fields were profuse with blooms and they were just getting started blooming today. However, the closer we got to Muker the more blooms each field had. At Muker, we wandered through the streets lined with dwellings, visited the chapel and walked around its churchyard, and even popped quickly into the Muker Literary Institute. The tea shop was closed so we then headed back to the C2C.

Once back on the trail, we took the lower route option, but then turned off to follow a route right along the river’s edge. The lower C2C route comes down to touch it a couple of times, but the river route follows each bend…thus the additional miles we had today. We just dawdled along, enjoying the abundant wildflowers and wildlife, accompanied by the sound of the birds singing and sheep baaing. We spotted rabbits, of course, and three pheasants. We stopped to watch a man setting stones in a building and to watch a mother duck take her seven ducklings down to the river and disappear as they floated downstream.

Along in the afternoon I passed this black hen and I noticed her suddenly turn and start following me. Having been traumatized by a turkey in childhood, I don’t trust domesticated fowl, so I sped up a little. I peeked over my shoulder and she had sped up, too. I sped up again and so did she; I kept my eye on her and she kept coming. Nancy said it was very funny to see her little legs waddling to try to catch up to me. I just wanted to know she wasn’t planning to catch up to me and nip me on the leg. Finally she stopped on a little rise. Nancy stopped to talk to her and had a very nice conversation with her. I kept my distance. All in all, I think I felt more menaced by her than those cows that were so excited to see us.

But as I said, we just dawdled along all day, taking everything in. Sometime in mid-afternoon, though, we realized we still had a ways to go! It was about that time that we had to leave the river and rejoin the C2C that takes you up and through some small villages and along the public roads. Of course, that’s when we realized we were getting tired and then pretty soon it started to lightly rain. We did make good time the last part of the trip and had an excellent dinner at the Black Bull Pub. I had Hunter’s Chicken…hmm…I wonder why I chose chicken tonight?