Category: North York Moors
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Strawberry Moon
Today is the longest day of the year. The summer solstice. And it’s a full moon. The last time we had a full moon on the summer solstice was in 1967. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was top of the pops and Barclays bank was just days away from installing the first hole…
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Start of Triathlon in Kielder Water
Kielder in the North Tyne valley is not the my most favourite place. Great if you like water sports of all sorts or fishing but too manicured and sanitized for me. And so so commercial. Superlatives abound. With 44 billion gallons Keider Water is the largest reservoir in the UK, has the largest hydro electric…
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Traigh Gheal
Checked in at the Lochaline Hotel overlooking the Sound of Mull. A bit basic but much appreciated after two days wild camping and last night in a bothie. But that at least was a midge free zone. I have walked with two mates, Andy and Bob, from Fionnphort on the western tip of the island…
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I Nam Ban Boidhehch
Island of the beautiful women, or Iona as it is more commonly called.
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The final straw …
Finally Roseberry Topping appeared after a week with its head in the clouds. But I climbed up there this morning to find the summit crags defaced by a giant Vote Leave banner. I am incandescent. I do not want to see my beloved Roseberry turned into a political billboard. What irks me more is that it carries a…
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Mystery wall
Deep in the heart of Hutton Lowcross Wood, below the Hanging Stone, this wall of dressed sandstone is a bit of a mystery. It forms a small recess and seems to be on the same level as the old jet workings but these don’t usually have stonework associated with them being just small scale drifts into the…
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High Bride Stones
Fascinating sandstone columns and rock outcrops eroded over the millennia by wind and rain. Deep wooded valleys or ‘griffs’ cut into the moor, which is a National Trust property a few miles south of Whitby. In the photo is Dovedale Griff. Unlike many heather moors Bridestones is not managed solely for the grouse so is much richer in wildlife.…
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Oak Leaves
I was watching Springwatch last night and I’m sure I heard Chris P say that there are between 750,000 and 1,000,000 leaves on an oak tree. Mental calculations whilst walking in Cliff Ridge Wood tonight justified that figure. Ten leaves on a spring, ten sprigs on a branch the thickness of a pencil, ten branches the thickness…
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Slacks Beck
Another dreich day. Still it’s the last day of Spring today. Tomorrow it’ll be Summer so it’s bound to be sunny. Mist and low cloud mean my attention is drawn to closer details. This small stream has many names. Just below its source on Great Ayton Moor it is referred to as Howden Gill. Here…
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Calcining Kilns, Rosedale East Mines
A bit of a dilemma. Parked at the Lion Inn and went for a circuit of Rosedale with visibility less than the width of the road and the temperature below 10ºc. And so it remained until tea time when the mist finally cleared and the sun came out. But by that time I was comfortably back home. Rosedale was…