Day 16: Osmotherly to Chop Gate

There is no life higher than the grasstops 

Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind 

Pours by like destiny, bending 

Everything in one direction. 

I can feel it trying

To funnel my heat away.

If I pay the roots of the heather 

Too close attention, they will invite me 

To whiten my bones among them. 

The sheep know where they are, 

Browsing in their dirty wool-clouds, 

Gray as the weather. 

The black slots of their pupils take me in. 

It is like being mailed into space, 

A thin, silly message. 

They stand about in grandmotherly disguise, 

All wig curls and yellow teeth 

And hard, marbly baas.

---an excerpt of Wuthering Heights, a poem by Sylvia Plath

Subtitle: The Wind and the Heather

There was miles and miles of this beautiful plant (mostly whipping in the breeze.)

We left our home at Vane House this morning and continued along the Cleveland Way. It ends up the coast to coast trail and the Cleveland Way intersect for some 25 miles or so.

The Cleveland Way appears to be much more popular and definitely better maintained. The coast to coast is often just a dirt single file track through a barnyard, while the Cleveland way is sometimes paved and often composed of flagstones. Most of the treacherous downhill stuff has built in stairs.

We even saw folks rolling baby strollers on parts of it...and carrying little kids. So even though there was quite a lot of ascending into the Cleveland Hills, it was a much more easily negotiated footpath.

Cleveland Way--well marked for a change.

This lake is a part of the York water reservoir

 Parts of the footpath reminded us of home. The trails here are usually unwooded and today was one of two times we have found ourselves in at least a small forest of hardwoods.

Reminders of home. Real trees on a trail!

Also reminiscent of the Appalachian area, we walked up and down small hills all day...not tiny stuff,but just not mountains. After our second ascent, we saw something marvelous: The North Sea! We could see our goal for the trip...the other coast about 40 miles away.

Paul sitting on a hiltop gazing out at the North Sea ahead.

The North Yorkshire Moors are really lovely. They have heather all over the place and are gentle rolling hills. There are many outstanding views to the valleys and countryside below and eventually out to the sea as well. BUT the wind is blowing almost gale force.

I am sure we were hiking in gusts of up to 40 mph. The guidebooks said an essential item was earplugs. In fact, I suspected the guidebook writer had been sleeping in our hotel rooms where snoring is not that uncommon of a symphony at night. But the reason is now clear: 40 mph wind in your ear for 6 hours?

Heather above, Valley below

No thanks! Fortunately we had jackets with hoods, and that did the trick. One intrepid and very tired lady from Los Angeles named Robyn was nearly being blown off the edge. The wind was that strong and her legs were wobbly.

Too bad we cannot photo that wind. Views were great though.

We had read about this cool pub literally built of stone into a hillside called the Lord Stones. (As an aside, this reminds me of my great writer friend, Nancy Wahler who is writing a book called Godstones. I have read parts of it and it is fantastic. But it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this pub.)

This public house has been there forever and is quite famous on this trek. It was built in a spot where three lords properties merged and a stone marks the spot. We looked up the opening hours: daily 9am to 9 pm. So we planned to have our noonday meal there. WRONG! Closed. Completely closed. Not even a Cheetoh in sight.

WE enjoyed a sumptuous repast of M and M s while reviewing the guidebook. It was actually pretty tasty!

We made due and as it ends up, we were only about 2 hours from our hotel for the night. We have found hiking in the hills generally is going a lot faster than the mountains of the Lake District. We often walked 8 solid hours and now the same distance took only about 5.5 hours. We ain't complaining, I tell ya!

The Wain Stones. Not the people...the danged rocks. It would probably be a good name for a thrash band, don't ya think?

Our last obstacle of the day was climbing over these rocks. Looks easy. Isn't. But we made it. Some of the worst terrain today, much like our past hikes here, was the descent--steep! But fortunately, this wasn't a sheer dropoff rock scramble like the Lake District. We managed to get down in one piece although we were very worried about the lady from LA who seemed to be very challenged by the descents. 

We ended up at the Clay Bank parking lot from whence our evenings host at the Buck Inn in nearby Chop Gate (we are told the locals pronounce it Chop YAT. Who knew?) picked us up and drove us to the hotel There are no hotels on the path in this area...which is thankfully unusual. We have literally walked right up to nearly every hotel door.

We found these two towel swans on our hotel bed. Awwww...

Overall, it was  a really nice day. Partly cloudy and cool. The wind was fierce but amazing. The views were stunning after so many miles in farmland and animal muck.  We enjoyed viewing the North Sea, our goal, in the distance. And the heather...the prettiest thing in sight.  Walking through miles of heather is more attractive than a bed of roses. Or even towel swans.

Paul's Ponderings:
Back to hills today, but not of the lake district sort.   Thankfully.   Other than the wind, it was a lovely hike, although there was a bit of rock scrambling up thru the Wainstones.   The best investment we made before leaving home was some Icebreaker 270 pullovers -- the weather over here, even in August, has been pretty brisk at times.   We are now as little as 36 miles from the end, depending on what guidebook you look at.   Tomorrow is about nine miles over to Blakey Ridge and the bulk of that is on a disused normal gauge railway bed, so should be pretty easy -- the pitch is almost flat after a short initial climb.

Some of these English hikers are pretty hardy.   We saw multiple folks today in shorts and tank tops striding up the hills (and running down them), despite the 30 mph wind gusts with air temp around the mid 50s at best.    We looked like variations of the Michelin man with poles in our hands in comparison.

Continuing a theme from last night -- sort of -- regarding ice cream, we had ginger and apricot ice cream tonight with dinner.