Selby

Whatever else you might say, it can't be denied that Selby provides a very decent curry.

Although that's about all there is to say about it.

Our walk started out pleasant enough, with a bike track leading through the countryside surrounding York, which leads you through a scale model of the solar system. We got by with only one near-death encounter with cyclists who seemed to decide that not slowing down and going on both sides of us, as close as possible, was the best way to deal with pedestrians. However, as the bike track went on and on, and the planets got further and further apart, we began to wonder whether civilisation was becoming nothing but a distant memory, forever haunting our dreams but never showing its face to your faithful correspondents. But then we came upon Riccal, which provided not only a nice shandy but also a choice of two pubs in which to drink it, which made up for the previous lack.

Anyway, some scary industrialisation, that had us hankering back to the old days of the neverending countryside, later, we got to Selby. Our initial impressions were of a rather scary town, complete with frightening looking youths. However, having imbibed a healthy dose of The X-Factor, we finally brought ourselves to leave the comfort of our room to seek out food, and the initial impression proved false. An unimpressive start, but after an encouraging curry performance and two spontaneous discounts (one for pointing out that the restaurant had undercharged us, and the other for being vegetarian in a guest house, if you please) Selby has made it through to Boot Camp.