mutteringhousewife

I had myself all psyched up for a difficult day of climbing in the North Yorkshire moors, and I don’t know if I’m just fitter now, if it was the path, or if it was the company, but it was a delightful day.

We left the very comfortable Park House and its flocks of pheasants and did not start on the Coast to Coast track that runs past the front gate because we’d gone that way yesterday on our sneaky route to Mount Grace Priory.

Instead we turned left to find a path that went up the hill through the forest and immediately ran into our American friends. They were doing the conventional route, but had seen enough of the Commander to understand why we were deviating. It turned out to be an excellent path, and a dog walking woman we met on it told us that up until a month ago it had been a muddy nightmare, but they’d fixed it up just for us. And by the time we regained the offical Coast to Coast track, there were our American friends again.

What we’re walking on today is actually the Cleveland Way. As a long established walking route, it is paved almost all the way we walked today with flagstones, making the whole lot much easier to negotiate. I do wonder if eventually the Coast to Coast will be similarly paved and we’ll look back and say we did it when it was difficult and scoff at the young uns. It did start out with a long climb, up into a cloud which stayed with us pretty much the whole day. The very first cairn on the track when we reached the high moor was not much to look at, but a small plaque indicated that it was a Bronze Age burial mound.

I’ve decided that mist is better than wind or rain, but it did mean that the next stop was as much view as we ended up getting.

The Americans had a date with a taxi at 3, they have not been as fortunate with their accommodation bookings as we have. So we made a good pace, and having a bit of excellent company on the track made a lovely change. We’d heard a rumour of a cafe on the track, which seemed very unlikely on the wild treeless moor, but sure enough around noon we descended a little into a sheltered valley with a very solid cafe and shop where we were able to obtain espresso coffee and toilets.

The track continued excellent, even with its ups and downs, but the fog increased.

The last climb took us to the Wain Stones, very mysterious in the mist. That’s where we bid farewell to the Americans and started to make our way off the path and down the valley to Chop Gate.

We’re staying at a pub run by a chap called Wolfgang, which means Bavarian beer (yay!) and schnitzel for dinner. The Commander is currently trying to persuade him to light the fire which, given the weather, seems a pretty reasonable request. He’s being fobbed off by Wolfgang’s tales of his adventures in Australia and how sad he is to be instead living instead in England because he married an English woman. We shall see how this battle of wills plays out. At least we managed to get him to turn on the hot water. I should really have been keeping a record of the intricate shower mechanisms we’ve encountered along our way, but this is the first one we’ve seen that is centrally operated from next to the bar.

Only three days left of walking, and very little climbing! I really think I’m going to make it. I don’t think I’ll wear the Coast to Coast T-shirt we bought at Frith Lodge until maybe the last day, or even on the train back to London. Don’t want to jinx it.