The New Lyke Wake Club

Late Summer Crossing – Walk 6 – Graeme Noble

General Information:
Date & Start: Monday 19 August 2024, starting time [from the LWW finish/start stone near the beacon at Ravenscar 9.31am] – Tuesday 20 August 2024 [ending time 7.39] at the LWW start/finish stone above Cod Beck Reservoir.

Walking time: 18.10.40
Actual crossing time 21hrs 8mins 41secs.
Total Walking Distance: 44.3 miles
Dirger: Graeme Noble (a solo walk without assistance).

I decided to re-visit my previous walk with a few amendments concerning the route. No more water boarding the lower limbs and stomach. Actually, I hate my feet getting wet. (Bizarrely, that’s another story for later in this 6th chapter of woe and commiseration. Anyway, spending 2hrs crossing c2 miles, during walk 5, wasn’t going to be a repeat tramp for me!).

So, the first part of the walk followed the classic route to Lilla Cross. I have to say that the weather suggested what the rest of the day was going to offer, gusting wind and quite a chill at times. Yet, it was easy going, just under 3 miles per hour and a breeze through Jugger Howe, still lush and luxuriant green.

One new thing to observe are the amount of fire warnings out on the moors and the do’s and don’ts of having a barbecue – well, the notification says don’t (unless it’s top end steak with a glass of red wine with a pepper sauce and the trimmings). That’s what I’d eaten the previous lunchtime (on the Sunday with family) and for some reason the thought of the smell of that plated food, with the accentuation of barbecues sitting in a picturesque frame in the front of my eyes while I’m writing here, compelled my thoughts away from the report. Remember, follow the countryside code and take your litter away with you and don’t burn the place down, follow guidance and make your way following the route you have chosen.

Lilla’s Cross provided a happy few moments of reminiscence concerning the beauty of the moors and a sort of bitter sweet sadness of not venturing into Ellerbeck, but I’d made a decision on the new route (walk 5) previously and wanted to connect with the northern path that I’d followed last time. So, with the cries of former warriors resounding in the slightly stronger wind I headed north, bypassing the bog before Ling Hill Plantation, Biller Howe, Dale Slack and the entirety of Newton House Plantation, found in Bill Cowley’s suggestion of walking the northern route of the LWW he describes in the Lyke Wake Walk, pages 34 & 35, fifth edition 1971 (walking in a westerly to easterly direction) on the route of Foster Howes Rigg.

There is a damaged Ann’s Cross still residing up there on a hillside and a trig point not so far away naturally joins the Whinstone Ridge path. A great ridge walk with the A169 ever present to the west and oddly, the sound seemed to be more greatly exaggerated up there of steam train hoots being reflected upward to me as I walked alone. No people, just lots of white dust clinging to my boots. (Not that type of dust, although I had been on a stretch…of ground).

Here I had my lunch and mused in silence for 15 minutes or so. I’d been looking around for the York Cross on the Whinstone Ridge and if I’m honest was so engrossed in the search that when a man’s voice said good afternoon, I had a heart attack and needed to be resuscitated. With the help of belief that John Bond had come to meet me I recovered, but it was with alacrity that he explained his mission in life was only to pass by the souls of those doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s award and that he was not able to find time to assist me in my search for the Cross of York. Off he went. I was eventually to pass him again where the Whinstone Ridge crosses through the A169 westward and, he explained he was waiting for another team of 6 youths.

On to Beck Hole. No trains passing by under the bridge and no beer from Birch Hall Inn. The sign remained in its official place stating, ‘only cash today’. I wasn’t cashless, only mindful of my previous visit there). I joined the old railway line where I stopped at a seat dedicated to Mrs. Stannard? Removing my boots alternately, I extricated a thin piece of grass attempting to grow into my left ankle and had some fun removing it, eventually, pulling the skin away and it popped out. The right heel was in poorer shape and by the end of the walk I had a two-inch blister on it which was patched over with gauze. Strangely, this never burst throughout the walk. A memorial and test to my foot’s sturdiness of character, and its ability to make the most of pain. Or, the insane determination to complete the crossing at any cost, as Kate (my partner) might express.

A new pair of socks came out and gingerly putting the right sock over the ankle with not too much of a grimace, I walked up the track bed before cutting off to the footpath which crosses Musk Esk Cottage, crossing the Old Roman Road (course of which is now found in a wood) marching uphill to In Moor. Not in A Mire! Here, I walked along the Roman Road (another according to Ordnance Survey – mind the Roman’s got around quite a bit) and eventually joined the track crossing Egton High Moor. A rather grand route, even with more restricted views due to low cloud.

No view of Whitby and the surrounding coastline, unlike the previous walk, and the silhouettes of landscape only present from memory and the far distance diminished in grandeur. I had a sadness here due to this area being one I frequented often with Hella, a good friend, for many years over many summer holidays, and remembered her associated conversation about the sea and the heather. A view can only bring somewhat the person back and a reality came upon me that on this day of walking that my friend was actually dead and I had let, somewhat, go of the sadness of her passing at that moment in time and the reality was that she was still resident with me but in a happier way, than had been the case for some years. So, the experience of walking the Lyke Way Walk may well have been some type of grieving experience for me concerning times past and the associated memories with the lived experience.

Below Wain Hill where the road runs north at the juncture of road and track I headed southward (different to walk 5) and cut through the path at Wintergill (somewhat a ruin to the left of the path, south of Wintergill plantation) and eventually arrived at Mountain Ash Farm, rejoining the route I had taken from the previous walk.

Glaisdale is truly a beautiful place as is the walk by the head of it leading up to Caper Hill. Tiring, but once upon the top of Glaisdale Moor and the Cut Road Path things became easier even with the wind increasing in strength. By the time I’d arrived at the George Gap Causeway Path, passing Trough House, I wondered if it would be easier to fly to the Lion Inn as in some ways, the weather was attempting me to take up flight, or alternatively to dig up a bit of coal from the old disused quarries, to keep warm. Watching the occasional bird flying past I’m not sure if that would have helped either to get there as even they had problems remaining aloft and flying in a straight line. Buffeting had arrived early on the plate. Tea was still a few miles away.

From trod to trod the wind became stronger and the threat of rain coming up from Rosedale stayed away with occasional very short showers. But, at Fat Betty the rain came down in a torrent and I was lucky enough to be wearing my waterproof jacket as a wind cheater, however, waterproof leggings were not given time to be pulled out of the rucksack and the rain washed my shorts and ran into my boots. This was not good for my right heel, which, in conversation with me said ‘enough’. The force and ice-like power of the rain hitting my face made it feel like winter rather than a summer’s evening. The wind by now was blowing so strongly that by the time I arrived at the Lion Inn I found that my shorts had dried out. Amazing, that at 65 years old, I had become a rotary clothes dryer!

A saving grace was that the Lion Inn kitchen was still open at 8.10pm, and I was informed that I had 20 minutes to order tea. Jam Roly Poly, a pot of Earl Grey (with some extra water) and a pint of Theakston’s Old P. I remained until 9.05pm, ah! the glamour of walking in a gale, but knowing I was on schedule to complete the walk. No rain but the gusts of the devil’s breath pursued me by until I claimed eventual shelter under trees and the embankment of the Cleveland hills along stretches of the Jet Miner’s Path at Hasty Bank. There were a few frogs to be seen, but surprisingly, the number of rabbits huddling on the side of the path towards Bloworth Junction created a rather saddening feeling of how nasty the storm had become.

I’d walked through Storm Desmond when walking the Cumbria Coastal Footpath (as it used to be called) between Maryport and Silloth and remembered arriving at the hotel at around 6pm, soaked through, then being asked, ‘do you want an evening meal,’ and, somewhat replying, ‘not tonight,’ clambering upstairs to the room and putting on quite a few room heaters, leaving the soaked clothes in the bathroom, jumping in to bed frozen and waking up the following morning at 8am with a room heated up to about 30 degrees and a pile of sand on the bathroom floor, noticing that my clothes had changed to a beautiful golden glow. I digress.

The weather became worse and I wondered if I would be Bloworth away, occasionally being blown to the right of the track and then I would find my way back to the left. There was quite a stretch of such devilish chicanery. A comedian I hear you say. A knackered man with a problem right heel, I might reply. I was so tired that I missed Round Hill. But, waking up to the shock of missing a venue I knuckled down to concentrate on dropping down from Carr Ridge to Hasty Bank. The footpath with what appear to be small cobblestones and the occasional big outstanding stones built into the path I considered to be a trifle daunting and my right foot was in the process of making painful conversation. I found a pause in the wind after a slight descent after the gate and seat near the disused tips and re-felted the heal with a pain reliever spray and extra padding. This lasted until before Lord’s Cafe where I conversed with a frog, hallucinated about the meaning of life, wondered what the hell I was doing out at 3am in the morning with a head torch on and the recognition that there was only half a bacon butty left and that had to last out until the seat at Hollin Hill. The frog had taken up residence under heather and we both experienced ‘Vulcan’ contact. Quite pleasant!

Communication…
‘Lie down on this heather
Let the time pass away’
Said the frog, ‘let those trees sway
And you behold your footsteps will wither…’

Amazing what happens when you ‘kiss that frog’, (Peter Gabriel). I jump from trod to trod and move on too fast. I’m not sure what happened to the frog, but it moved. Did it ever exist? Again, with some gloominess I decided to take the Jet Miner’s Track (Cowley, 1971, pg. 24). Unlike the previous walk the wind didn’t abate and had actually increased in power. So, by the time I had arrived onto the top of Carlton Moor things had moved on a bit and I put the waterproof jacket back on with a hope and a prayer at the trig point, arriving at the top I was greeted by a ferocious wind. It’s odd getting hit with a gust and getting blown to the right off the top of the cliff. What a way to die. The newspapers, X, Facebook etc., and any trivial commentary would have a great time twisting the story concerning the sanity of someone being out at that time of night in that type of weather! They wouldn’t ask me, via séance, what I had been thinking. Nor would I expect them to in this day of, I am, Me, culture.

I made my way steadily through to my early breakfast last stop at my favourite public seat, relishing the fact that daybreak had arrived at 5.30am and I could see without the use of a torch. An hour later than I had experienced two weeks previously. So, at Hollin Hill the remnants of the bacon butty were noshed and my flask of peppermint tea (refilled at the Lion Inn) was emptied. One hill left to climb up and then the Lyke Wake Stone. Clain Wood called after a half hour’s break and I was on my way. (again, similar to walk 5, no owl serenade as on previous walks). The gale had begun to blow itself out, or, perhaps I had absorbed it. Energy wise I now wonder if the temerity of the weather had absorbed part of me! But I got to the end with roughly two hours to spare.

The Top Shop at Osmotherley does a good cup of coffee. An hour later Kate came to pick me up, and made some rather tasty egg and bacon sandwiches from her portable deli in the car. I rejoiced that I had returned to humanity, yet humbled by the rumblings of the god’s bowels.