A game of two halves…

The Craven Heifer? A lovely place. Welcoming to walkers/stumblers, friendly young competent staff, good range of beer and good value wholesome grub. 7 a.m. brekkie no probs and porridge and honey served. Whilst they had no drying facilities the towel rail and radiator could be set to 11 and Chinese Laundry Experiment was set in motion.

Then again, this place … right in Yorks Dales walking country, no boots or big rucksacks, no this no that don’t do this don’t do that sign in immediately (they’ve already had my money!) declare breakfast intentions now as the chef needs to know (it’s only 3:30 and all the options are the constituent parts of a full English). Room smaller than small, no wi-fi (trying to do this as a cut n paste which without adult supervision is a recipe for disaster dahlink) no signal, the only attitude is somewhere between apathetic and can’t be bothered to be apathetic. However in the interest of fairness all things that should be hot were…

To protect the guilty I shouldn’t actually say it’s the Crown in Horton in ribblesdale. Getting here was fine as was the weather for the most part. There were two stand out natural joys, the Malham Tarn

and Cove and the magnificent Pen-y-Ghent.

If you’re not familiar then I do recommend checking them out either physically or virtually. I had the joys of the Leeds Liverpool Canal for some miles which is always a boon in terms of terrain and navigation and the 25 miles went pretty well. All the aches and pains, stresses and strains of yesterday are dismissed as psychosomatic (great album by the Jesus and Maru Chain).  And I forgot to mention, and I don’t know why it gave me a skip of delight, but I went under the M62 the other day, the bit where it splits to go around the farm. Small pleasures for simple minds (hey hey hey yeah … oooh oooh oooooh)

ah, now int’ other pub, reet grand and they have this new-fanged wi-fi thing (the pub is right to to a SuperFastYorkshire) banner.. but more importantly under a Theakstones sign

Milestone: now into N Yorks
Steps: 42000 or about 1,350,000 in total

Stroll on ?