Day Nine: Redmire to Snape

Distance: 17.5 miles
Weather: bright and sunny, breezy
Bunnies: hundreds
Jumping fish: quite a few

After a very comfortable night at the Bolton Arms (as well as a short period of excitement when Rob went big game hunting to eject the biggest spider from under the bed) we were set off by just after nine. We took the road down out of the village and across some sheep fields and into a bluebell wood.

We entered the manicured grounds of Bolton Hall and followed the driveway to the village of Wensley. Dodging the traffic, we crossed the bridge and rejoined the River Ure. Soon after we passed a group of D of E'ers on the riverbank, lads cooking sausages on a Trangia. We declined the offer of hotdogs, having eaten, as we have most of the last week, way too much breakfast.

The riverside today seemed so much prettier than yesterday and the flies slightly less annoying. After about a mile, we left the river and crossed some fields to Middleham, where there is a castle and a teashop. This was closed disappointingly. No tea for us. Or cake. We had a bit of a view of the castle as we left up the hill, following the signs to the stepping stones. We didn't need to use the stones, as the path was on our side of the River Cover. We soon came to the Cover Bridge Inn, which was open and did have tea.

We stopped for lunch further on downstream, at a pebbly beachy spot on a bend of the river, sheltered from the wind, and watched the little fish jumping and some ducklings in the distance.

The way took us through the grounds of Jervaulx Abbey (with open tearoom) and then along shady green lanes, tracks and country lanes to Snape and the Castle Arms Inn.

This section of our walk is not quite as described in the North of England Way guidebook, as we decided to not stay in Masham in order to reduce the amount of road walking tomorrow as we cross over the Vale of York. The last section of the day was navigated as we went along, judging the paths as we came to them, mostly they are clear and pretty well used, but you never can tell through farmland.