Well, we did it! Nineteen days and going on 200 miles after we walked expectantly out of St. Bees and up onto the headland beneath a mostly sunny sky, we marched into Robin Hoods Bay on aching legs and sore feet, beneath a threatening sky.  Whew!
   

The final third of our cross country journey–from Osmotherley to RHB–took us through the North York Moors National Park.  We enjoyed some fine, distant vistas (even the North Sea a couple of days before we arrived), the lovely Esk Dale (especially the exquisite village of Egton Bridge, right out of a BBC serial), and on the last day a beautiful and beautifully-named waterfall, Falling Foss and a mysterious, hallowed-out boulder known as the Hermitage.  We made one steep climb out of Clay Bank up to Carr Ridge and another up the lane out of Grosmont (33%). We trudged and danced through nearly two miles of muck after a local hiker opined that we might find “a bit” of muck on the path along Broughton Bank that we took instead of climbing up to Wain Stones.