The weather today is muggy and the humidity sometimes coalesces to light rain with very occasional sunny spells. This is better than in the highlands, where there has been frost overnight. We leave Ripon with very comfortable feet following our rest day maintenance.
We decide not to start the day following the Ripon Rowel Way, as this would be yet another river walk, so we head up out of town past a barracks and into the woods. The first thing Rich sees is a buzzard on the path but it soon takes flight. The path here is clearly very old. There are rough, uneven cobbles visible in places, suggesting that this was once a main thoroughfare. These occur again in a further forest later in the day, where the path has clearly been cut into the hillside, prompting Richard to suggest that this once may have been the main route between Ripon and Masham. It is certainly very direct.
The nature of the countryside today has completely changed. There is mud underfoot and looking to our left, we can see the Pennines, some of which are south of us now. We come out of another patch of undulating woodland to join the Ripon Rowel Way and we can hear water rushing over rocks. The river Ure is no longer a gentle waterway. It is now a peat-stained, Pennine torrent that has carved through the landscape creating cliffs that are now to our left. This means that the path cut into the ravine is now narrow with a steep drop on our other side. As we leave the riverside, I spot some wild raspberries. These are much smaller than their cultivated counterparts but release an intense burst of flavour as we each eat one. It feels as if we are in highland Scotland rather than Yorkshire.
We climb up the hillside and reach a viewpoint where we can see across the river to Masham. It also has a convenient bench for our lunch. It’s then down to the river again, spotting ducks and a kingfisher. We reach a road, which is the quickest route into town, but is busy with cars, vans and farm machinery, so we follow the river up into town for a cup of tea and a cherry bakewell at Johnny Baghdad’s café then it’s on to The King’s Head Hotel for the night. It’s been a short but direct day’s walking, packed with interest.
Total distance so far: 267 miles
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