Silence of the Lambs!

What a wonderful day today! Cindy made a New Year’s resolution that she would visit a new place every month not related to work. Well, today being January 31st, we were slightly under the gun. We decided that since the weather was cooperating finally we would take a walk to Knaresborough – a town about a 20-30 minute walk down the road.

So we pulled out the map and planned our route through the walking paths in the back fields. All was going well until we encountered the mud puddles. I have provided a picture of the small one below. We managed to use our ninja walking skills to traverse the one pictured, but that was the little brother of the big-ass mud bog that was awaiting us around the corner. After attempting several routes to try to get past, and risking losing my shoe in the muck, we had to admit that the mud was mightier than us and turn around. So, back to the main road.

Twenty minutes later and we were making our way into town. We found a sign pointing us to the town center and followed it to the high street – aka main street in North America. We walked around looking at the shops, not being in a shopping mood and also needing a loo and some eats. We passed on some interesting pubs for Subway, wanting to get back on road again quickly. We meandered around town and stumbled across Knaresborough Castle which was a really cool spot. It gave a fantastic view of the river and town and I snapped a bunch of pictures with the new camera. Having seen enough of the town, and already two hours into our trek, we headed back to the main road and towards home.

Again, we decided to take some footpaths home, but different ones this time. They followed along the river for a bit and then directed us into the woods. We were following signs for the Ringway Footpath for a bit, but then they disappeared. Instead of taking out our map to figure out the way home we just kept on trekking on – the adventurous sides in us coming out. We kept on looking over the fields and thinking that our house was waaaaaay to the left of us, but we just kept on marching. It wasn’t until we ended up in some random field, having missed a footpath sign we later found out, did we pull out the map. A course of action in place to get us back home, we got out of Mr. Random’s field and found the sign directing us home.

With our home in sight just meters away, we walked right past it and headed to the high street of Starbeck in search of some yummies for dinner. The award-winning butcher was open and so we ventured in hoping to pick up some lamb. There wasn’t much left on display as they were closing down for their Sun/Mon weekend, but he had a small rack of lamb with 4 ribs that we had him cut in two for us. Then off to the corner store to pick up some wine and essentials. That is a bit redundant I suppose, as I categorize wine as an essential. With our purchases in our packs, we dragged ourselves home – a nice cup of tea calling our names. Once at the door to our house we checked Cindy’s pedometer for the day – 4.5 hours, 22,000 steps, 14.79 kilometers! What a day!

For Cindy’s pictures of the day, visit her blog here.

(Oh, and the lamb I made was delicious! The best I have ever had – sorry Mom & Dad, but it’s true. I surprised myself having never cooked it before, but it just melted in your mouth and was so tasty. It may have something to do with the fresh cut of meat from the butcher, but either way, it was perfection. Next time we will have to get a bigger rack!)

Tags: Knaresborough, lamb, walking