THE CLEVELAND WAY 3 - 7 Dec 2009
Following a generous, all expenses paid holiday to Afghanistan courtesy of HM the Queen I managed to squeeze in another block of leave before Christmas proper to do another couple of walks. The Cleveland Way and the Yorkshire Wolds link together so it made sense to do them back to back.
Having taken the train to York and then a bus, I overnighted in Helmsley before setting off on the 109 mile jaunt around the North York Moors then down the coast to Filey.
Day 1 started out looking good however the weather soon turned and I found myself first in 30 mph fog and then sleet and snow. Another area of the world I know well from the air, having done my flying training around there nearly 20 years ago, I was unable to appreciate the familiar scenery, swathed as it was in low cloud.
Day 2 on the other hand was beautiful. A clear blue sky and nil wind made for lovely walking and my new boots and the newly discovered art of wearing two pairs of socks meant my feet were giving me no trouble at all. The path took me up round Carlton Bank and then down to Clay Bank where, on the recommendation of friend local to the area, I stopped at the Lord Stones Cafe for a very nice bacon roll. From there trail led east offering views to the north across Middlesborough & Teeside. Odd that just morning Corus Steel, a major local employer, had announced they were closing their plant there laying off hundreds of folk. I met and walked for a while with a local chap who had himself been recently laid off - he spent ten minutes or so pointing out all the factories and plants that had closed down in recent years, which seemed to be, as far as I could tell, all of them. We went our separate ways and I made my way down to Kildale at a good 6 kph pace to make the last train of the day which took me 5 minutes down the line to Great Ayton where I overnighted.
Day 3 back at Kildale at 8am I set off for the coast, taking in Saltburn before joining the undulating cliffs heading south for Staithes. The weather turned vile again and stayed that way for the next few days. The trail follows the coast southwards through Whitby, Robin Hoods Bay and then Scarborough before reaching the end at Filey. The closer to Scarborough one gets the less pleasant the scenery inland becomes. The cliffs make for great up-and-down walking but the endless holiday parks ruin an otherwise lovely coastline. As one local succinctly described the path from Scarborough to Filey "S'all caravans'n dogshite"....
I gave myself a day off in Filey at a B&B to sort out some washing and generally relax before launching off on the next trail...
