Knaresborough

F inal day off before starting the second half of the walk and I didn’t have a great deal planned. First order of the day, after I’d dragged myself out of bed, was to head in to Harrogate with Russ to get the last few bits I couldn’t find on Saturday.

We got the bus in and first things first, seeing as I’d not had breakfast yet, I needed something to eat. Russ took me to a little deli/cafe where I got a sausage buster: a rather large roll with four sausages in…just what the doctor ordered.

Feeling better for having some food we shot round the town to get the bits I needed and then headed to the Old Bell pub for a well deserved pint.

Because I had a lot to do before starting walking again we didn’t stay long in the pub and got a bus back to Russ’ place.

First job: sort my stuff out. I’d been a bit disorganised with all my stuff over the weekend, knowing that it didn’t matter as I wasn’t walking the next morning, so I had quite a bit to sort out so that I was ready for tomorrow’s walk. Not having packed it all for a few days it all looked like quite a lot but it was just the same as it was before I went to Russ’ place. Funny how the mind works isn’t it?

That job done I had to sort out accommodation for the coming days. Looking at my route I started to search online for prospective beds until I hit a bit of a problem over the weekend. I couldn’t find anywhere to stay in or near Dufton which started to cause a massive problem. Without somewhere to stay the whole weekend was thrown up in the air and I didn’t know what to do.

Looking at my route and trying to find a solution I decided that I’d have to give up with the idea of going to Dufton before Alston and just lump with a bit of a crap day’s walking directly to Alston, off of the Pennine Way. Needs must and all that and getting to John O’Groats is the main aim of this walk, not to walk the entire Pennine Way. I’m not looking forward to that walk as most of it will be on the B-road to Alston but hopefully I’ll be able to liven it up a bit with some path walking. We’ll see.

Decision made I set to booking all the rooms and it wasn’t long before I had all accommodation up to and including Sunday night booked – a huge weight off my shoulders. All I had to do now was make sure I finished each day’s walk!

I’ve been a bit behind on blog updates over the weekend so the next job to do was to get yesterday’s blog update written.

All chores done Russ, Rachel and I went in to Knaresborough centre. We took a little stroll round so I could take a few snaps of Knaresborough for you all to see, including some of nice ones of Russ and Rachel. It was a lovely evening and the walk along the river was very pleasant indeed.

After the walk we went for a meal at Zolsha, a very nice Indian restaurant. This was my first curry since I started the walk as I’ve been too scared to just walk in to a random curry house for fear of making myself ill. But, having eaten food from the Zolsha before I knew I was going to be ok.

It…was…heaven! I’d forgotten how much I love curry and I lapped it up. I didn’t go for anything too hot knowing that I had a day’s walking ahead, but nonetheless the food was glorious. Thanks Russ for picking up the tab, very much appreciated!

Fed and watered we went back home where I foolishly decided I’d update the OS on my iPhone. I say foolishly as immediately after it had installed and restarted, I lost all my calendars and contacts that I was syncing with my Google account – doh! I was not happy!!

I did some searching around and it looked as though a lot of people suffered from this problem and it was then I kicked myself for not checking thoroughly before installing it. Russ and Rachel went to bed as it was getting quite late by now but I was determined to sort it out. Hell, I had to otherwise I’d have nobody’s number on my phone and that included the girls and that was not going to happen.

I finally managed to get it all syncing around 12:45am after quite a bit of mucking about and with that I went to bed. Not the best way to prepare for the first day’s walking after a nice long break that’s for sure and a fine way to ruin a great weekend.

Photos

I f you want to find out more about this day you can see the photos I took.