Coast to Coast Day 9 Richmond – Ingleby Cross 23.6 miles Copyright © Barry Smith 2012. All Rights Reserved. Today was to be the longest sector on the walk and reputedly, the most boring. Fortunately, the weather was again fine with a cool breeze, and it didn’t take us long before we were ‘misplaced’ following some out of date directions in the guidebook. We were later to establish that we weren’t the only ones to have been misled by the same inaccuracy. We broke the long slog with a break at the White Swan at Danby Wiske for lunch. Here we encountered a rather enthusiastic, but somewhat naïve Indian youth who was doing the walk from east to west. He had to plan some (worryingly) longer than normal sectors in the Lakes due to lack of accommodation, and despite not having high level walking experience was convinced that these sections would pose no problems. I hope he made it successfully. From Danby Wiske to Ingleby Cross I had my worst period on the whole walk, when all of my body seemed to rebel and I finished up absolutely whacked. Fortunately Graham kept encouraging me with that inane sense of humor that he has. Prior to our arrival at Ingleby Cross (where someone had removed the cross from the square) the weather turned again, and we had a heavy hail storm followed by rain. Our accommodation was the Blue Bell Inn, not the cleanest of hostelries, but at least we would be close to the food and ale after our exhausting day. On arrival I collapsed onto the bed for a while, prior to sampling the Blue Bell’s bar food. ;