Another Long Walk: Day 11: It's a Desolate Wasteland!

September 4, 2024: It rained during the night. Rain! Which had not been in the forecast at all. It didn't cause any problems for me--I was safe and dry in my tent--but it annoyed me to no end how bad the weather forecasts out here were. Why were they so bad?! Why did they change so radically from hour to hour? I swear there are monkeys throwing darts at a chart somewhere....

The hillsides are permanently scarred from all the old lead mines in the area.

In any case, by morning, the rain had stopped and since I planned to hike about 20 miles, I wanted a relatively early start. The midges were a bit of an issue in the morning, something that hadn't been a problem for weeks, so once I got out of the tent, I moved quickly to get it packed up and moving, managing to be ready and hiking by 7:00am.

The trail led by some more lead mining ruins before climbing to a plateau that truly looked like a desolate wasteland due to lead contamination during the mining era. Back in the day, they weren't so worried about environmental catastrophes. But at the same time, I still found it strangely hypnotic walking through the area, as if I were walking through a post-apocalyptic world taken right out of a movie.

It's a desolate wasteland! Not much can grow in this lead-contaminated region.

For the most part, the trail was relatively easy the whole day. A few ups and downs, but nothing particularly big or memorable.

I stopped for a half hour at Two Dales Bakery in one town for lunch, but I didn't linger long since I wanted to knock out about 20 miles.

I stopped for lunch at the Two Dales Bakery. =)

At one point, I missed a turn and wound up walking an alternative route on a road, but fortunately it merged back up with the trail about a mile later and didn't set me back timewise at all.

I made such good time, that I arrived in the bustling town of Richmond considerably earlier than I had expected. Richmond is the largest trail town on the Coast to Coast, and I would have liked to stay in town to explore Richmond Castle and other sites in the area, but there were no campgrounds or hostels in town and the hotels were all pretty expensive, so I decided to skip the tourist sites and push onward to wild camp somewhere out of town.

Given how early I had arrived in town, however, that gave me time to stop for dinner which I did for a couple of hours. That gave me a chance to get online and start arranging new transit options off this island now that I was committed to missing my original flight--which was originally scheduled to leave in just three more days. Plus, I got to use the toilets. =)

After two hours, I was ready to go and was shocked--stunned!--to see that it had rained while I was inside eating dinner. WTF/! That hadn't been in the forecast at all! At least I didn't have to hike in it, though.

Before leaving town for good, I stopped at the Co-op to pick up a few food items for the next few days. This would likely be the last decent grocery store of the trail, so I figured I may as well make use if it while I could.

When I left the Co-op, however, the rain started picking up again. Ugh!

Richmond skyline

I pulled out my new umbrella. At least I was going to get some use out of it. I wasn't sure if I'd need it before I left England when I bought it a couple of days ago, but all things considered, I still would have preferred not using it.

I followed the trail out of town, over a river and past a sewage treatment plant. A little way past that a sign warned not to go off trail because the area was used for military training purposes and you might get shot if you wander around off trail. Okay, maybe it didn't say that in so many words, but that was the gist of the message.

So I backtracked to the small piece of forest between the sewage treatment plant and the military training area to set up camp. (It's a desolate wasteland, I tell you!) I went into the trees off the trail so my tent wouldn't be quite so obvious to anyone that happened to pass by, and it was dark under the thick canopy and the ground was a bit muddy.

Overall, it was one of my least favorite campsites of the entire trail, but once I was inside the tent, at least I wouldn't have to see how dreary and ugly the campsite was. And I was fairly well hidden from anyone on the trail, so that was good.

Before going to sleep, I checked the weather forecast again--I couldn't help myself--and saw that it now showed rain in the forecast tomorrow morning. Argh! This time, I went to sleep hoping that the forecast would be incorrect. *fingers crossed*

And thus ended another day on the trail....

Old tailings from the lead mines

I have absolutely no idea what these tires are about!

Lead mining ruins

I found this rock wall particularly fascinating because the rocks were red! That was very unusual!

This tank... is this even a tank? Anyhow, whatever this is was parked next to several vehicles that were for sale, which made me think that his vehicle was for sale too. Anyone need a police tank? Why does a dinky town with perhaps a hundred people in it need a police tank? Questions I may never get answers to....