The Last of the Summer Winos on the Yorkshire Moors

JULY 2011

The Lyke Wake Walk is a forty-mile walk across the highest and widest part of the North Yorkshire Moors. There is no exact route aside from starting in Osmotherly and ending in Ravenscar but there are various rules governing what qualifies as successful completion of the challenge, and what does not. One such rule is completing it within twenty four hours.

As I think we established during our walk down the Northumberland Coastal Path myself, Dave Browell (DB) and Iain Rickard (Sooty) are leisurely strollers rather than competitors. We require generous Bed and Breakfast accommodation, and like to stop for a beverage as often as possible, ideally for elevenses, lunch, mid-afternoon and dinner.

So, in July 2011, we opted for a customised version of the Lyke Wake Walk. We’d start at the coast and head east-to-west, as opposed to the usual west-to-east direction, and we’d take our time over it. Three days to be precise.

We’d also be joined by another old friend, Peter Foreman, which added an interesting dynamic to things. Myself, DB and Soot can quite happily walk for miles and miles with nary a word of conversation. Pete likes a good old natter, to say the least.

Our Moors Walk would start from Robin Hood’s Bay, so we needed to get there first.

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is a heritage railway which operates steam trains between Pickering and Grosmont and, on occasion, on to Whitby. It’s a television celebrity having featured in the Harry Potter films and Brideshead Revisited, amongst others. So aside from getting us from A to B, it also provided some historical interest – which appealed to me and DB, although Soot and Pete appeared a little nonplussed. The bacon sandwiches were of greater interest. Our engine incidentally, the Lancashire Fusilier, was built in 1937 by the Armstrong Whitworth Company of Spotswood, Newcastle, and is on loan from the East Lancs Railway. Fascinating eh? The bacon sarnies were made that morning by Mrs Miggins of Pickering, Yorkshire.

So we chugged our way under bridges and over bridges to our destination, Whitby – whereupon we headed straight to the pub for some scampi and chips. Well, we were at the seaside after all. Scores on the doors: miles walked 0, pub meals 1, pints 2.

We then turned south and headed past the striking silhouette of Whitby Abbey, which my philistine companions barely even paused to look at. We also passed Hornblower Lodge, a now decommissioned foghorn station. Although the foghorns are still present, they are no longer functional, which is probably just as well as they would apparently shake you to your boots if you were anywhere in the vicinity when they were sounded. 

And on, past an extensive caravan park complete with residents club-house and bingo on Saturday evening. We couldn’t wait. Alright, we could. So it was on to Robin Hood’s Bay, which is indeed a very impressive sweep of a bay – although I’d no idea what it had to do with Robin Hood given that it is nowhere near Nottingham or Sherwood Forest. We had a quick pint in the first pub we came to before locating our residence for the evening, arranged by Pete, and apparently with the caveat that they may have only double rooms available. Which was not previously perceived as a problem – I’m perfectly happy sleeping by myself in a double bed – until it was pointed out that we’d be sharing rooms, which meant that we’d be sharing beds.

The old village is a maze of tiny streets and alleys, and nooks and crannies, befitting the area’s history of smuggling and contraband and nefarious deeds. We settled in to the aptly-named Bay Hotel – there’s a bay, and it’s a hotel – for the second pub meal of the day, and yet another enormous portion of something-and-chips, with a splendid view of dusk settling across the bay. And then it was bed-time. With Pete.

So it was a functional start to the trip: a train from moor to coast, and a short seven mile walk down the coast. Miles walked 7, pub meals 2, pints 9-ish. 

I woke to find myself perched on the edge of the bed, with Pete perched on the other, and a four foot contact-free-zone down the middle.

A full fry-up for breakfast is de riguer in UK hotels and B and B’s, and while I’ve never considered myself a healthy eater, or been concerned about it in any way, one does get the feeling that we may be on a stodge-and-fat diet for the next few days. I’d not yet seen a vegetable.

And then our walk proper could commence. There was an option of walking due south to Ravenscar, which represents the start/end of the Lyke Wake Walk but which would drag us miles out of the way, or we could cut a more direct path west and join the walk at a more convenient point. Or we could get the bus. Against my better judgement the bus option won out and we headed west onto the A171, before leaving the road and heading off onto the moors. After which it became, well, moors. And there isn’t an awful lot to be said about walking across moors. They’re moors. There’s heather. And grasses. And…well, moors. They’re beautiful in their isolation and desolation, but it takes a greater imagination than mine to do them poetic justice.

We passed the Fylingdales radar station, officially part of the United States-controlled Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, and now a rather drab square building and not the landmark golf-ball radomes of old. And the final section of today’s meander afforded us another view of the steam train, and a gentle stroll down a sun-dappled tree-lined bridle-way into the village of Goathland. Whereupon the choice of taking the bus came into its own. Not thirty seconds after crossing the threshold of the hotel the heavens opened with the most torrential hailstorm known to man – or this man at least. Hailstones the size of golf-balls, travelling at the speed of sound, hacking great craters into the tarmac. Obviously that’s an exaggeration but you get my drift. If we’d been caught in that I’d’ve cried and gone home immediately. And heaven forbid if I’d insisted on us walking the first section and subsequently got all four of us caught out in that.

We were staying at the Goathland Hotel, which doubled as the Aidensfield Arms in the television series Heartbeat. And it would appear that the whole of Goathland doubled as the village of Aidensfield in the television series Heartbeat. And they certainly make the most of it. I think they stopped making Heartbeat several years ago, but they haven’t stopped making money out of it.

After dinner in the much-photographed bar we headed down to the Birch Hall Inn in Beck Hole. It’s a mile or so down a steep road into a deep, tree clad valley where a few houses surround an old fording point on the Eller Beck. And the pub must be one of the smallest imaginable…just two rooms set either side of a sweet shop, with a tiny wee serving hatch in each. It was disappointing that the barman was a perfectly ordinary young feller in a Fred Perry t-shirt and not the mad, cross-eyed, be-whiskered auld lunatic that he should have been. Quaint. Charming. Rustic. But a tad boring. So after just one pint it was back up the 1-in-4 gradient hill to the Heartbeat Hotel and a whisky or two before bed.

Day three of strolling saw us go from Goathland to Blakey Ridge, some fifteen miles or so. It’s a lovely walk out of Goathland, two or three miles up onto the moors, and around a few ridges – all in glorious sunshine. And then my boots fell apart; quite literally. The sole of one boot detached itself from the upper, and a few miles later the other boot took solidarity and split as well. The only available solution was to use Dave’s gaiters to hold things together. And quite remarkably things held firm as we trudged mile upon mile across boggy moors, sometimes on the path, sometimes on the heather, sometimes through the bog, and always a hard slog with heavy, muddied feet. Whatever the distance it was made to feel significantly more by the conditions. It was often a case of head down, think of England and march on. 

The Lyke Wake Walk incidentally, covers 48 miles and is a challenge done west to east in just one day by many folk of a fitter disposition than our good selves. We encountered a few Lyke Wake Walkers heading in the opposite direction. So while we were trudging uphill through wind and rain with full waterproof kit on, there was a steady stream of serious fell-runners heading in the opposite direction in their vests and shorts. And not one of them appeared to have footwear held together by gaiters. Strange that.

After several hours trudging through the rain, we reached the Knott Road which would take us round to the Lion Inn at Blakey Ridge, although it was still another hour and a half to the Brigadoon of a pub which kept disappearing out of sight. The Lion Inn had been our preferred hostelry for the night but there were no rooms at the inn so we were in the stable with some shepherds and three clever blokes. Actually we were staying at the Feversham Arms, in the nearby hamlet of Church Houses. 

No one objected when Dave spontaneously secured a taxi down to Church Houses which subsequently turned out to be a bit further than we originally thought and further than any of us would like to have walked. “No one objected” is an under-statement by the way – we were in the car before the previous occupants had even vacated.

We were welcomed at the Feversham Arms and hit the bar for beer and sustenance. There ain’t be much to do round ‘ere so we just stay in the bar listening to the guy with the biggest sideburns and heartiest laugh in Yorkshire and trying to avoid eye-contact. There was bound to be a pub called the Slaughtered Lamb somewhere round there.

But we survived the night and then it was our final day, Blakey Ridge to Osmotherly, a good eighteen miles at least. The guy with the biggest sideburns and heartiest laugh in Yorkshire gave us a lift back to the ridge from where we would start walking, and it was a fairly comfortable five miles or so along an abandoned railway line to start with. My boots incidentally, had been consigned to the bin and Sooty’s spare walking shoes gratefully donned in their place.

After ten miles or so we reached the village of Chop Gate where we stopped for lunch and a pint or two, before continuing on. The next four miles or so were pleasant walking over more moorland, before we hit the final four mile stretch down to Osmotherly. At which stage the tiredness kicked in. It wasn’t tough walking – along the road, up and down some small but steep dips – but Osmotherly just never seemed to get any closer. It was a huge relief to finally reach what is a very picturesque village. 

All in all we’d walked around fifty miles; some coast, some moors; some rain, some shine. The second day’s rain-sodden slog over the boggy moors was tough-going, and the final day’s eighteen mile stretch a hard way to end the four days, but once done, the more challenging aspects of it make it all the more worthwhile. But I certainly don’t think we’ll be challenging the genuine Lyke Wake Walkers any time soon.