Last night I dined at Inntake Farm, with 5 friends
I had made along the way. Picking up a bottle of red at the Grosmont Co-op
yesterday we shared this with our home cooked meal.
Five courses, prawn cocktail, roast chicken and
lasagna, with vegetables and mash, lemon meringue pie followed by strawberries
and cream, tea or coffee.
We retired to the lounge chatting about our
experiences before retiring around 10pm.
I was up at 5am, excited and a little sad. I wanted
this to go on and I also wanted it to end as well.
Not that I haven’t enjoyed the walk it has been
fantastic, but I have a life and I miss that.
The Internet has been a great way to keep in touch
on Skype and Facebook and on this blog, however I am really looking forward to
seeing Maggs, Candice and Jess in Spain on Saturday.
Inntake Farm is where we stayed in 2011 the last
day of the walk and my birthday, surprisingly the same birthday as Rob the
farmer and Judith his wife.
We started that day with a champagne breakfast,
something that these farmers in North Yorkshire have never experienced and I
was told yesterday they will never forget.
So it was with a little extra sadness as I departed
Inntake Farm, wishing Rob and Judith a happy birthday for next Wednesday, then
I headed down the road to the hamlet of Little Beck.
Leaving the road I turned east and headed up
through Little Beck Woods and along May beck.
This was a delightful walk early in the morning,
the wood alive with birdsong.
Passing the Hermitage an hour or so along the
trail, this is a cave chiseled out of a huge rock way back in 1799, and
obviously the home of a hermit.
Staying to the trail along the beck the water
seemed to be talking, whispering, mesmerising with it’s babble. It's no wonder the woods were considered to be full
of magic and mystery.
Falling Foss, a waterfall, was my next encounter
dropping to the wood floor in a pool of pristine water, nothing, and nobody, to
disturb her sound. It was a walk in peace.
Turning sharp north on the road out of the woods I
walked onto what would be my last moor, Sneaton Low Moor, crossing the slightly
boggy moor top aiming for a solitary tree on a path to the B1416.
It is possible to take this B1416 road down to the
A171 then turn east and continue again on down the road known as Sled Gate
straight into Robin Hood’s Bay.
A little over 5km, you can smash this in an hour,
if you want.
But this is not what Wainwright intended, he
planned this walk to be enjoyed, it was to be a walk through the English
countryside. A walk that is bookended with a coastal cliff path.
 |
| Whitby Abbey (in ruins) |
So I leave the B1416 again on boggy ground and with
views back to Whitby in the north and head for Graystones Hill.
There are some duckboards to cross saving the boots
from the worst of the mud, and then it is back onto the bitumen at Rigg Farm.
At times the bitumen cannot be avoided but
Wainwright did what he could to get you off these hard and often noisy and
dangerous roads and onto wild ground as quickly as possible.
The road sign to RHB is where I turned right up
Mitten Hill, skirting around Low Hawsker past the caravan park near York House
then through the penultimate village of High Hawsker.
Some walkers have stayed here in High Hawsker last
night, their final night on the Coast-to-Coast looking at the North Sea, with just
a stroll in the morning to RHB.
For me this would be anti-climatic. Another reason
I had a short days walk yesterday and spent time on the old steamers.
It is good to finish, as I started, with some
effort spent.
Remember I am in England and it would be nice to
pass one more tea room before finishing, and I do this near Oakham Beck, then
make my way down to the sea cliffs on the east side of Northcliffe holiday
park.
The North Sea, right there, beneath the cliffs, that
stop it from invading the coast, in all its majesty, I have endured, I have
crossed England, but I have not yet finished this walk.
There is the matter of the pebble to be dealt with.
Wainwright is famous for his many documented walks
mostly in the north of England and mostly on high ground; of all his walks this
is the best.
He, of course did not make the scenery, he did not
build any paths, and he did not document this as one path, one way, his way.
Wainwright had a unique art of storytelling by leading and guiding you, across
the country, in a way that is testing, rewarding, teasing, surprising,
invigorating, relaxing, joyous and delightful, in a way that lets you, the
walker, write your own story.
He was the true composer and this Coast to Coast walk
his masterpiece.
So this final amble along the sea cliffs is just
that, another chance to evoke the emotions, to tantalise, tease and reward, to
the very end.
A few more fields to cross, a few more kissing
gates to negotiate, and some coastal scenery to admire.
Getting ever closer but not quite seeing the end,
until the very last minute.
And then, there, finally after so much endurance, I
see Robin Hoods Bay.
The trail leaves the coastal cliffs and weaves
around and through gardens and houses that overlook the bay, before dropping
down along the main street, through the old village and to the sea.
The North Sea. My final destination.
I stand there boots engulfed by water and joyously
dispatch my pebble to the sea.
I have crossed England, by foot, on my own, and for
some of the way quite alone, in body, but never alone in heart.
Daily Stats.
Distance 19.2km
Assent 477m
Descent 551m
Time out 4h
33m
Stopped 0h
20m
Moving average 4.4km
per hour
Weather 10 to 19, Mostly overcast.
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