Day 4: Thixendale to Ganton

Distance: 22 miles
Ascent: 650m
Weather: warm and sunny, quite windy at times
Birds: Red kites, kestrel, pied wagtail,partridge, curlew, lapwing, goldfinch, oyster catcher
Cake disasters: 1
Times crop sprayed: 2

Stuffed full of breakfast and bags loaded up with food, we left Thixendale by the path up the valleyside, watching two red kites doing aerial acrobatics. It is windier today and feels cooler this morning the sun was shining and, after a quick stop to adjust clothes, it was very pleasant.

We walked around the edge of a dale with cobweb streamers in the trees blowing in the wind; everything looked very green but there were not many flowers at all, just a few daisies in the grass. The evil smelling crop spray we got covered in might have something to do with that.

We passed through deserted mediaeval village of Wharram Percy, with its pretty ruined church, pond and  kestrel sitting on mediaeval telegraph wire. Leaving Wharram le Street a bit later on, we had a sit on a bench and decided to have lunch in Wintringham, six miles off. The route passes by Fizgig Hill, Duggleby Wold and along another lane for a bit into Wintringham. There does seem to have been quite a lot of road walking on the YWW.

As the day went on we began to see more flowers, including forget me nots and crosswort, wild strawberry, cow parsley, white dead nettles, red and white campion and, rather unexpectedly, a trig point in the middle of a wood. We had lunch on bench at edge of Wintringham, within earshot of the birdscarer that we'd walked past not long before when crossing the field into the village, I'm blumming glad it hadn't gone off while I was any closer. Higher onto a wooded hillside at Deep Dale, we saw another red kite (and have now decided they are as common as muck), orange tipped butterflies and herb robert, cowslips, dog violets, and daisy things that looked like daisies but weren't. (Later- they probably were daises.)

The path went up a 'kin steep hillside, where we had a good look at some flowers, a funny wonky gate, artwork with a spaniel swimming in it and cunciulous earthwork very reminiscent of Offa's Dyke. Through a wood carpeted in orchids, and out onto a grassy field edge with bunnies at work warning sign, Some bunnies, considering number of holes in the path, had been busy - the ones we saw were out playing.

In the later afternoon, the YWW definitely became the path less trodden, still well signed but the going was a little harder and the path less distinct, we entered a field of nettles and mole hills, prickles in my shoes, and stopped on a curly bench for an afternoon snack. There then followed a cake disaster (Rob has still not come to terms with this yet) and shortly afterwards we had an encounter with a giddy cow.

Down off the chalk hillside, the paths and verges were very sandy, red and dusty. There was some more walking along narrow country roads, where we managed to not get mown down by cars while avoiding having to leap into the nettle verge. Coming into Ganton, we crossed the A64 (bad accident just round the corner) to the Ganton Greyhound, where we are spending the night.