It’s 11 pm and I’m tuckered out. Completely.
My day began dubiously. I awoke at 7 am ready for my run. I dressed, ate and readied myself. I grabbed the key from the kitchen table and…couldn’t figure out how to lock the door behind me. Being American, I assumed you simply put the key in the door, turned the latch and then went about my way.
Not exactly so.
Thirty minutes later, I figured out how to lock the door, freeing me from the bonds of the house. (This required a serious feat of reverse-engineering that I won’t share with you because I had to figure it out and if you come to England you will have to figure it out too.) I headed out with a vague notion of where I might go. Katz showed me the head of Endcliff Park, which sits at the bottom of her hill, but I didn’t know much beyond that.
As it turned out, there was some kind of race – although it was quite small – in the park so I happily ran along side several of the (sprinting) participants, who inadvertently showed me the way through Endcliff Park and into Bingham Park, the next in a series of parks that are connected together.
That’s good news for me as I have a long 15-mile run on Sunday. But the day was just beginning.
Katz slept in a bit (a well-deserved sleep) and after a late breakfast, we packed up and headed to Monsal Head for a long hike. (By the way, you’ll notice I have misspelled that in all of my pictures. Bully for me.)
The trail head at Monsal Head is gorgeous. There are three little cafes to eat and a quaint hotel where you can stay. Before we loaded up on coffee and pastries, we took a look at our starting point on the hike.
We sat down for a bite to eat – I had my first ever Cream Tea, which I now recommend to everyone on the planet – and chatted with several families who were out for a hike as well. But we also saw the first of what would become a recurring theme for the day.
After we gorged ourselves on sweets and caffeine, we felt obliged to walk.
Almost everything we hiked across was public land, however, the English government passed a Right to Walk law that essentially gives anyone the right to walk anywhere they want – public or private property – so long as they don’t cause any damage.
We headed down the first hill – a gigantic descent – and came across a beautiful little stream.
(There is a gentlemen in on the left side of this picture. He asked me to make motion like I was diving into the stream. Which I did. He gave me the thumbs up so I expect somewhere there is now a picture of me looking like I was about to leap off the side of the embankment.)
A quick turn and we were headed into the main part of the 4 1/2-hour hike, which was largely made up of open land.
Katz said we’d run into very few people because there are so many trails along this open expanse. That proved quite true. Throughout the day, we say no more than a few handfuls of people and nearly every time, they were hiking past us.
You’ll notice there are very few “paths” where we are walking. The land is mostly open so you’re always on the lookout for a few markers: small wooden sign posts that say “Public Path”, tiny road signs that point you towards the direction of one of the surrounding towns and the breaks in fences and such that suggest this is a path humans might be using.
After several hours, we came across Ashford in the Water, a cute little town along the hiking path. We stopped for more sweets, because we’d walked off the other calories already.
We sat outside in the courtyard of this little ice cream shop. You’ll notice, if you look closely, the little mascots who were running around. Just in case you can’t make them out:
Our little friends hung out around our feet while we ate. They were quite cute.
We pulled out of Ashford, heading out for the last rugged part of the hike. We got a bit lost, cutting through the backyards of several residents and inadvertently – although properly since they signs pointed us that way – found ourselves in a field with several cows and bull.
I was not happy that we’d found our way into the bull’s arena. Until we got a bit closer and saw him:
The old guy turned his back on us (we’d already gotten over the fence). He couldn’t have been less interested in us if he tried.
With the danger averted, we set our sights on the last major climb of the day, which took us to the top of the last hill, just behind Monsal Head.
We drove home (I fell asleep for a few minutes), napped and then went out for a completely decadent dinner at a local Italian restaurant before retiring for the day.
Content. Hiked out. And happy.
