Cleveland Way Day 4 - Capt. Cook & The Matterhorn of Cleveland!

Day 4

Kildale to Slapewath

Walked 11.5 miles

10.5 CW Miles + 1 extra mile from & to campsites.

A nice relaxed start this morning, no rush as we had an easy day ahead today. Left for the trail at 10am heading down through lovely Kildale village. From there it was a steady climb uphill to Captain Cooks Monument.  A 20 foot high obelisk that extols the virtues and exploits of Capt. James Cook in 19th century prose. It praises his intercourse with the local natives - Nigel suggests this may have lead to his death on Hawaii at the age of 51!  

From here we went onward to Roseberry Topping.  Another 1 mile, to and fro, uphill, downhill,  extension of the Cleveland Way. We definitely didn't have the trail to ourselves there, a honeypot tourist trap - known locally as the Matterhorn of Cleveland. 

From there we headed east over Hutton Moor to Highcliff Nab. Leaving moorland behind we then had a short walk through Guisborough Forest with views down on our left to the market town of Guisborough. Descending from there to the main Middlesbrough to Whitby road at Slapewath.  

We finished our walk today early at 2.30pm, just the right time for a late lunch at the Fox & Hounds Pub in Slapewath. Nigel had their Home Burger & Chips with bacon & stilton and I had Tomato Chicken & Basil Pasta with Ciabatta Garlic Bread & Salad.   Saved us cooking this evening - food was excellent. 

From there a mile walk to Margrove Caravan site. They accept backpackers but its a slightly tired and dated site just for caravans. The owner again was very friendly though and has given us a nice quiet spot away from the main park behind some stored caravans but close to toilets & showers.  We award this site 2* . It's cheap again, £10 for the 2 of us and has good shower facilities, the location lets it down but we've had a peaceful relaxing afternoon/evening. Time to move inside the tent though now, the midges are out! Early night again for an early start tomorrow.

We are roughly half way now.

Photos from today:

Cooks Monument with Roseberry Topping just to the left

The rowan trees were smothered with berries in Guisborough Forest

Cleveland Way Day 3 - The Roller-Coaster Ride!

Day 3

Osmotherley to Kildale

Walked 20.5 miles

20 CW Miles + 0.5 extra miles from & to campsites. 

We left camp to start walking at 8.15am. It was a tough long day today. 

75% of the trail today we walked 2 years ago when we completed the Coast to Coast Walk as the C2C follows the Cleveland Way temporarily, but we had much pleasanter weather this time - cold, wet & misty last time,  warm, cloudy with sunny spells & a nice breeze today.  

It was a roller coaster of hills today, up and down and up and down!  1050m each of ascent & decent, almost the equivalent of climbing Ben Nevis but with 30lb packs on!  We walked up onto Scarthwood Moor, down into Scugdale, up onto Live Moor, along Faceby Bank & Carlton Bank, down to Lord Stones. (There used to be a lovely cafe here, the only possible rest stop on route today, but sadly it is currently closed and undergoing renovation).  Up/down Cringle Moor, up/down Broughton Bank, up Hasty Bank down to Clay Bank, up Carr Ridge, up Round Hill, across to Bloworth Crossing where we left the coast to coast section. We then walked over miles & miles of heather moorland over Ingleby, Battersby & Warren Moors. A few practicing fighter jets flew by & also the mountain rescue helicopter doing a training run. Great views all round today and we could see the sea, where we'll be in a couple of days. 

We arrived at our campsite, Kildale Camping Barn & campsite at Park Farm about 5.30pm.  A fantastic small site, just perfect for walkers with very friendly owners, cat & dog. All the facilities you need with great views looking back on the hills we've walked today. Great price £5 pp + £1 for a half hour shower! Lovely sunny evening sat at a picnic table which makes it so much easier for cooking & eating, we normally sit just on the grass. 

We had a yummy supper too, SI (Simon Rimmer) Tomato Biryani. His brand produce dried food sachets that just need water adding & cooking, about £1 a sachet, far cheaper & tastier than specialised dehydrated camping food which costs three or four times as much. Would highly recommend the SI sachets for anyone else needing lightweight backpacking food.  

We rate this campsite 3-4*, perfect walkers accommodation for which the farmer has received support from the Northern Uplands Farmers Tourism Initiative.  

Only one little down side... We have a lovely field of sheep behind us but today is the day the farmer split the ewes from the lambs!  So we have constant bleating & baaing from the ewes behind us and the lambs a couple of fields away! Not complaining though, poor sheep - Don't think they'll keep us awake we're quite tired, Nigel's already fast asleep! Late night for us - 9.30!

Easier & shorter day planned for tomorrow so a lazy start in the morning. 

Photos from today:

Lots of lovely purple heather everywhere 

The small conical shaped hill in the far distance through the stones is Roseberry Topping where we'll be tomorrow 

Down & up & down & up!

The road to nowhere - we're very tired and still no campsite in site!  

A view of the Cleveland Hills in the distance that we walked over earlier today

Cleveland Way Day 2 - We have entered Grouse World!

Day 2

Scawton to Osmotherley

Walked 21.3 miles

19.6 CW Miles + 1.7 extra miles from & to campsites. 

It was a very windy night but we were very pleased with our new tent which held up well. Our new Exped Synmats were very comfy too. 

Was up early, breakfasted & on the trail by 8am. Easy walking terrain again today through farmland & on moorland tracks. From the start we had swarms of grouse waddling in front of us or making us jump leaping out from the side of the path - except, we saw none over the moorland section where a shooting party convoy of Landrovers passed us... Not so stupid grouse! 

Early in the day we took a pointless 2 mile extension to the top of the Sutton Bank White Horse. Imagine how a 200 foot high limestone/chalk carving of a horse in the hillside looks when you're stood on its ear? Not the greatest tourist attraction we've seen/not seen! The best view on that section was from the interpretive sign - A vale vista sketched by Turner over looking the Vale of York. We walked along this western escarpment for most of the day for which we had continuous great views dropping down into the Vale on our left. 

Excellent visitors centre at Sutton Bank with an excellent selection of cakes for a half hour morning break. 

Then onwards to the Hambleton Hills, lovely purple heather moorland and one lazy sheep who wouldn't move out of our path! A sunny day with cloudy spells,  but very windy - the gusts were strong enough to knock us off balance on a few occasions but we were thankful for the wind to keep us cool. 

Arrived in Osmotherley, not Oswestry Nigel, about 3.30pm. Quaint village with a quirky village shop. 

We had originally planned a spot of wild camping on the trail, however the National Park have 'Extreme Fire Risk' warning notices everywhere so didn't think it wise as no stoves allowed. So we checked in at Cote Ghyll Campsite, Osmotherley.  We award this campsite 2/3* as it has all facilities but is a large commercial caravan & camping site and a bit pricy £9 pp.

Another early night tonight for another long day tomorrow. 

Early morning extra:

We had a visitor in our tent last night - the persistent Mrs Tiggywinkle! A large hedgehog kept creeping into our tent porch, Nigel's side (scared the living daylights out of him- wimp!) after our small sandwich bag sized bag of rubbish.  No matter how many times I chased her out with a walking pole,  so 'Intent' was she on our leavings, we eventually put the rubbish bag outside the tent to get some peace. In the morning we were surprised to find she'd sampled each bit of  rubbish but left it in a neat pile!

Photos from day 2:

The eye of the White Horse!

Carvings at Sutton Bank visitor centre

Wild bilberries 

No wild camping for us!

The lazy sheep - she wasn't going to move for us!

Looking ahead to the Cleveland Hills were we'll be tomorrow 

Cleveland Way Day 1 - A short evening stroll!

Day 1

Helmsley to Scawton 

Walked 5.7 miles

4.5 CW Miles + 1.2 extra miles to campsite. 

It took us forever to pack, it's not easy trying to be as ultralight as possible! My pack weighed in about 30lbs and Nigel's around 35lbs, which we were quite pleased with as we have only replaced some of our existing gear for ultralight gear and were also carrying 10lbs of food - enough porridge and evening meals for 5 days plus 3-4 days worth of snacks.

We left home after lunch by train from Newark to Northallerton. From Northallerton we got the Moors bus service to Helmsley. The Moors bus operators run a fantastic service ferrying hikers in a 33 seater bus to & from various locations over the North York Moors, Negotiating winding, single track lanes with very few passing places for cars coming in the opposite direction! Great views along the journey though. A service only provided on Sundays & bank holidays sadly. 

We set off walking from Helmsley at 5pm, walking past Rievaulx Abbey ruins. We didn't detour to have a look at it as we saw it quite well going past on the bus. Easy walking down old tracks, through woodland and past pretty fishing ponds. Got to camp site at Bungdale Head Farm for 7pm, nice small site but VERY windy on hilltop. 

We like play a game and score our accommodation on route just for fun - anyone watch 'Four in a bed'?  We are awarding this small basic site 2*, only because there were very few facilities & it lacked stunning views. A very steep long driveway up to the farm was very  character building! owners very friendly.

Supper then in bed by 9pm as have an early start & big mileage day tomorrow. 

Photos from day 1:

Nigel at The Starting Stone.

Cleveland Way National Trail - AT Prep Part 1

Next week we're off to North Yorkshire for 7 days to backpack the Cleveland Way.  

Our first thru-hiking trial run in preparation for the AT next year - walking and camping, we'll be carrying everything we need on our backs for 7 days.

The Cleveland Way, the second oldest National Trail in England and Wales (The Penine Way was the first) was opened in 1969.   A 110 mile horseshoe shaped route around the North York Moors National Park, the largest open moorland in England, 80% of the trail is within the National Park.  
The trail starts in the market town of Helmsley and finishes at the seaside town of Filey.   
For the first 3 days we will pass through dramatic heather covered open moorland (hopefully we're going at the best time of year for flowering heather) until we reach Saltburn on the coast.  For the next 4 days we'll be walking along the dramatic North Yorkshire Heritage Coastline on top of rugged cliffs, passing through old fishing villages and seaside towns.

We're treating this hike as an opportunity to test some new lightweight gear, tweak the load carrying and spend 7 consecutive nights walking and camping, averaging 15 miles a day. 

Being keen and experienced hikers we have all the gear we need for backpacking but unfortunatley most of the kit we already have is too heavy for a long thruhike.  Most of it will need replacing for lightweight/ultralight gear before we start on our long adventure next year.  For The Cleveland Way we will have to make do with what we have, luckily with the weather still warm we won't need warm winter clothing and when we get to the coast, there are towns a plenty so we won't need to carry numerous days supplies of food meaning we can cut down on a fair amount of weight.
 
We have however invested in three new pieces of gear to trial on The Cleveland Way.  

We have a new ultralightweight tent, A Big Agnes Copper Spur UL2.  Not the lightest two person tent around, it weighs 1.5kg/55ounces with it's footprint, but we decided we'd rather carry an extra few ounces of weight for a little bit more comfort.  It has dual doors and steep vertical walls with plenty of internal space that will make long trips with a partner far more comfortable. Our previous tent option would have been a 3kg tent so we've halved our tent weight.

We're also testing out some new sleeping mats - Exped Synmat 7 Ultralight Airbed Short.  These weigh 430g/15ounces and pack down to the size of a half litre drinks bottle.  Exped say these synthetic fibre mats are lightweight and robust, their abrasion resistance is high and puncture resistance is low. They offer comfort and warmth at a minimal weight and packed size with 7 cm thickness and an excellent R-Value of 3.5.  These mats are more like airbeds than the self inflating thermarest style mats.  We will probably take some thin lightweight foam matting to go under the sleeping mats for further protection against puncture and abrasion and also to prevent them moving around whilst sleeping.  The foam matting will also double up as a foam seat pad for sitting on at camp or lunch stops etc.  Our old mats pack size was around 56x16cm and weighed 1kg, so again we managed to cut the weight down by more than half.  

Finally our last bit of new gear is an Anker Astro Slim3 portable external battery backup charger.  It supposedly has enough power for 3 or more charges of smartphones or any USB compatible device and weighs just 113g/4 ounces.  Hopefully it'll keep our iphone and GPS watch charged for the 7 days as our iphone will be our only camera and we like the GPS to record trip data.

We'll let you know how these new bits of gear fair afterwards.

We will hopefully be able to post blog updates of our hike on route and also on our Facebook page - good pratice for us posting on the move.

C & N xxx