Out & About …

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

Tag: rock

  • The Beast of Ingleby Moor

    The Beast of Ingleby Moor

    Well, I think it looks like a beast, a cat or lion maybe. I woke up needing some inspiration for today’s outing. In 1484, Richard III was on the throne. The last of the Plantagenets, he who ended up under a carpark in Leicester. Whenever I think of Richard III, I think of a quip…

  • Hanging Stone

    Hanging Stone

    A dash around one of my regular routes before the weather was due to change. Through Newton Wood, up Hanging Stone, and then on to Roseberry. There were the remains of a fire on the Hanging Stone. Folk mulling over the meaning of life gathered around a campfire. An activity which has probably gone on…

  • It’s looking a bit black over Bill’s mother’s

    It’s looking a bit black over Bill’s mother’s

    An East Midlands expression that came back to me on Potter’s Ridge, a small hill that has Highcliffe Nab on its northwestern end. A few moments later the first drops of rain arrived. And don’t ask who Bill was, ’cause I never found out. On strange phrases, I learnt a new word today – ‘quockerwodger’…

  • The Cop Loaf

    The Cop Loaf

    I knew I had posted a photo of this stone before but I hadn’t realised today’s was from almost the same viewpoint. Ah well. A different season though, the depths of winter, January 2018. But in spite of the greater tree canopy, clear-felling to the south has allowed in a lot more light. I forgot…

  • Broad Stand

    Broad Stand

    The last few decades of the 19th-century has been referred to as the ‘golden age of climbing’ in the Lake District and one of the eminent exponents of rock climbing during this time was Walter Parry Haskett-Smith. Haskett-Smith was 23 years of age when he began to pioneer the early routes on many Lakeland crags.…

  • The Giant’s Boot

    The Giant’s Boot

    Northern Ireland’s most visited attraction is the iconic Giant’s Causeway, polygonal columns of basaltic rock formed sixty million years ago when molten lava spread across the land and created clouds of steam on meeting the sea. The lava cooled and began to solidify into basalt. While most tourists only get as far as the Causeway…

  • Painted Rock

    Painted Rock

    My heart sank when I came across this while descending Little Roseberry. Now call me a killjoy but is this really necessary in a National Park, “our most breath-taking and treasured landscapes”. It’s only a painted pebble left in a prominent place and asking finders to post photos to a Facebook page. A craze from…

  • A wet and wild Wainstones

    A wet and wild Wainstones

    What more is there to say? Perhaps a poem, a sonnet in fact, written in flowery Victorian language but titled quite simply “The Wainstones, Broughton Bank” From early youth, to more than three-score years, I’ve loved to climb the mountain on which stand The rugged WAINSTONES; or on every hand Are scenes of beauty; Cleveland…

  • Rock and surf

    Rock and surf

    A few days spent at Mellon Udrigle. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • A’ Chlach Thuill

    A’ Chlach Thuill

    Clear blue skies with no wind for the early dog walk predicting a warm day. This is looking towards the distinction spilt rock of Torridonian sandstone from which the village of Clachtoll gets its name. The name Clachtoll means the rock with the hole, a sea arch, and there was indeed one which collapsed in…