Bi-Pedal Bliss

 

I really have to thank my wife for envisioning and organizing this trip. There are few things in this life more pleasurable than walking from village to village in a relentless stunningly beautiful countryside, in company with sheep, cows and a few fenced bulls. Whether in heavy mist, light rain, streaming sunshine, no matter. It’s all good. It’s all very good. And in no small part because human beings were built to walk. Some anthropologists speculate that hunter-gatherers walked from 15 to 20 miles daily and since we essentially have the same bodies as our ancestors from so many thousands of years ago, it’s no surprise that we come more fully into our humanity when we attend to the body as it was meant to move.

 

Of course, many compensate with the gym, but I can testify that paying for a membership, driving to the site, changing in the locker room, walking or running on treadmills going nowhere at all, either to pounding music or a fake landscape on a screen, showering, getting dressed, getting back in the car to drive home is a far, far cry from walking out the door onto the path and through the fields. And yes, I recognize that there is some privilege to fly to this country, pay for this casually-organized experience that includes hotels and people taking your luggage to the next one, going out for too-expensive dinners. It's not a viable model for all of humanity. In-between the two are cultures that organize their daily lives around such walking outside and there are many.

 

Meanwhile. Our first day walking in Malham was in company with scores of other people— apparently, a very popular route to see the waterfall at Gordale Scar and the remarkable limestone. A nice mix of old and young, English and tourists, with the English including large Muslim families. It was a round-trip to and from our hotel and a thorough delight.

 

The second day was walking from our hotel in Malham to our next in Settle and here we were virtually the only people on the path. Met two couples coming the other way and that was that. There was rain just about the whole walk, but not torrential and our simple raincoats and an umbrella I carried but never opened were enough to be comfortable. This was indeed the English walk we imagined—after all, that brilliant green of the fields does not come from a dry climate! We arrive in Settle at 2:30, the hotel not open until 3:30, looked for some shelter to eat the lunch we brought in our packs and had to settle for a doorstep in front of a theater not yet open for the night. Something nice about the two of us in our mid-70’s traveling as we did in our 20’s, eating simple sandwiches we carried wherever there was a place to sit down. 

 

We knew some friends of ours back home had independently planned a walk in the Yorkshire Dales, but they hadn’t seem too interested in coordinating when we found out we all were going to be there close to the same time. But Karen decided to write them an e-mail and imagine our surprise when our phone rang and there they were—Stephanie and David! They were staying in a town nearby and had planned to visit Settle, so we decided to meet them this morning and then go on part of our scheduled round-trip hike together. 

And that we did, spending a few fun hours together walking up to Victoria Cave and having lunch in the overhang. They then retraced their steps to take their train and we went forward on— but apparently, quite a bit too much forward as we missed some turn-off and went 2 miles in the wrong direction before finally figuring out our mistake. We backtracked to where the error was made and then, with the help of a friendly Yorkshire man who wondered why we had a President like we do,

found a short-cut that saved us from retracing our exact steps. With the extra reward of the sun emerging and illuminating the landscape so reminiscent of a David Hockney painting. Apparently, not accidentally so—he came here to paint!

Our final day tomorrow, from our hotel in Settle to the next in Clapham and I’m fine in any weather, but if the gods are listening, that sun sure felt good today. We shall see.