Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

  • Middlesbrough Sunset

    Middlesbrough Sunset

    It’s been a while since I posted a sunset. A refreshingly cool dog walk provided the opportunity. Very hazy, probably the sea fret that’s been hugging the northeast coast, I thought the sun would fizzle out but with just a pinprick of sun left, I think it turned out alright. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Capt. Cook’s Monument

    Capt. Cook’s Monument

    A hostile environment of supercooled ice crystals, 20º below freezing. And 20,000′ below those cirrus clouds, it’s the hottest day of the year. Capt. Cook’s Monument, the obelisk on Easby Moor, that’s visible for miles around, towers above a group of schoolchildren enjoying being outside. It’s great to see some schools still value outdoor education.…

  • Bell heather, Danby Rigg

    Bell heather, Danby Rigg

    The first of the heathers are out. Bell heather, such a deep rich colour, my favourite. Ling, which will cover the moors by August is much lighter, more of a lilac. The third type of heather found on the moors is Cross-leaved heath with pale pink flowers. The ditch on the right is part of…

  • Common spotted orchid

    Common spotted orchid

    Out litter picking after a hot weekend and came across this orchid. The name suggests it may be common but finding it growing in abundance in an abandoned quarry well used as a playground by BMX bikers is heartening. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Huthwaite Green

    Huthwaite Green

    Also known as Heathwaite, names which are as Yorkshire as a name can be, the ‘thwaite’ element coming from the Old Scandinavian word for a clearing: thveit. Heathwaite means a high clearing and Huthwaite a hill clearing. This view over the buttercup meadows of Scugdale is a familiar sight for walkers on the Cleveland Way,…

  • Roseberry

    Roseberry

    Last summer the National Trust commissioned a local artist to paint one face of the trig point on Roseberry in an attempt to discourage graffiti. And, by and large, it worked. For a year the artwork has been respected and the trig point has been left relatively clean. I was ambivalent. Now a self-proclaimed “street…

  • Surprise View, Gillamoor

    Surprise View, Gillamoor

    Exit the tabular hills village of Gillamoor towards Hutton-le-Hole and the road suddenly turns left and starts a steep descent. Pause at the bend, the top of Pennab Bank, and take in a superb view of lower Farndale. Judging from old postcards of this view for sale on eBay, when John Keble, an Anglican clergyman,…

  • Pointer Stone

    Pointer Stone

    Pamperdale Moor seems to be randomly scattered with sandstone boulders of various shapes and sizes. In the middle of an area denoted as a Bronze Age field system on the OS map is a triangular stone propped up on another boulder. Apparently, it has a tapered cup mark on it, rock art. It has been…

  • End of Paddy Waddell’s Railway

    End of Paddy Waddell’s Railway

    I’ve written about Paddy Waddell’s Railway before, the railway that never was. A grand plan devised in the 1870s to link the ironstone mines at Glaisdale with the North East Railway at Skelton. Embankments were built and cuttings excavated and just one bridge was constructed here at Rake House near Lealholm just before the line…

  • Lenticular clouds

    Lenticular clouds

    Super clouds this morning. Lenticular clouds I think formed when high winds flow over an obstruction such as a mountain range producing a standing wave such as you often see in whitewater on a river. If the temperature at the top of the wave drops to below the dew point, moisture in the air will…

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