Day 5: York to Osmotherley - "He was baited and trapped for his meat by savages!"

Miles: 52
Weather: Sunny and hot
Total distance: 299 miles

We sat down to a reasonable hearty breakfast with Colonel Sanders this morning who was regaling a tail of epic proportions in his clipped accent - "I knew a chap that was cycling in...what's it called? Sierra Leone. No. Well it was a black African country anyhow. His bike was found at the side of a road. I don't know what the terrain was like; flat I think. Can't have been dense jungle otherwise they wouldn't have found it. Anyway, they never found the body. I expect he was mugged - baited and trapped for his meat - for want of a better word, by savages!" After bidding farewell to Colonel Sanders and the lovely cycle fanatic who helped inflate Alex's tyre with some hi-tec pump, we were off! Our knees were creaking this morning as we pedaled across lush meadows into the Vale of York, but this was not surprising for we had accomplished almost 250 miles in 4 days. The weather is gorgeous yet again and it's hard not to wonder when it will end as we travel north - apparently Scotland has been enjoying 80-mph gales!!

After debating, whether to go to a nice looking cafe to purchase lunch or go to cost-cutter, Luke purchased a mammoth sandwich known as a 'trencher', that was essentially half a loaf of bread. However, our trip to cost-cutter turned out to be the priciest yet and I was very disappointed with the depth of the egg-mayonnaise filling in my trencher. After crossing the East Coast Mainline, and failing to impress Alex with my identification of a Class 180 Adelante that was passing us at speed, we continued through green lanes towards Sutton Bank. Thankfully we avoided that beast of an incline, that for those not familiar with Yorkshire, is practically a sheer cliff with a road straight up it to the North Yorkshire Moors. The hot weather has only increased our sweating and our t-shirts (we are proud to say still unwashed) are encrusted with salt! You could throw them on the floor and that they'd shatter into a thousand pieces.

However, what was supposed to be an easy day turned out to be somewhat longer, with the elusive Osmotherley eventually being accessed from the wilds of the moor and a forest dirt track that ascended for what seemed like a mile. After searching up numerous hills and asking people who were lost as to where the hostel was, we finally stumbled across Osmotherley YHA. We felt a little guilty when the guy (clearly the chef) asked us whether we would like dinner and we said "no, but do you know if there is a good pub nearby?" Yet more pies were consumed (this time tasty ones) in a very cosy pub, although as is always the way up here, chips are counted as a vegetable (and the only one at that)!