Carry On Regardless*

C2C – Day 16: Sunday 17 April – BLAKEY RIDGE to GLAISDALE (9 miles)

What a whirlwind the last day has been! Those of you who follow Rob’s posts on Facebook will know that he tested covid positive yesterday, after our walk. Together with those present we decided to return home and to defer the last two days of the walk until a forthcoming weekend. The plans changed when, on my departure last night, Rob decided to proceed with his walk today on a short-cut route, northwards to the North Sea, and so to complete his challenge on an alternative C2C route. After all, Wainwright’s route is self-acknowledged as ‘only one of many possible paths’. And this afternoon Rob made it to the North Sea! Huge congratulations Rob, very well done in completing this physical challenge – a day ahead of schedule! Photos of Rob at the North Sea will follow.

So, having intended to postpone our C2C walk and given Rob’s decision, for my part I returned to the moors this afternoon to pick up the C2C route again, making use of our pre-arranged overnight bookings.

I would like to make special mention here and offer my sincere thanks to our dear friends Rick and Eleanor who made the above arrangements possible. Thank you for your kind and wise counsel, and for overseeing Rob’s ‘off-piste’ walk, and his well-being, over his final furlongs, and thereby facilitating my push to Robin Hood’s Bay at the end of the C2C trail. Thank you both, you’re the best!

Starting out after a quick sandwich lunch I covered the nine miles to Glaisdale quite easily on a reasonably flat path, along lanes and rough tracks across the tops of the moors. With buzzards overhead, grouse rising from the heather and skylarks from the grass this was a most pleasant walk with magnificent views over the moors and dales.

Aside from the disappointment of not ‘crossing the line’ together and completing the C2C walk in Rob’s company, I am quite at one with walking alone. I have a passion for music (as you may have gathered), but I never listen to anything whilst walking as I prefer to be in the moment, with just the sounds of the wind and the birdsong. This has certainly helped me today to internalise the travails of the last day or two!

And so, after a few miles of striding alone along the tops, I started down the tracks and lanes to my overnight accommodation at The Arncliffe Arms beneath Glaisdale village, for a cool pint in the sun.

*Today’s song title is actually less a title and more a dominant and recurring lyric that appears in the Beautiful South’s 1994 song ‘Good As Gold’. I’ve been humming it a bit today as it sums up our deliberations of the last 24 hours.