When we woke on day six of our walk, the first thing we did was to trot along to the shower block where our boots were drying on the towel rail. The previous day had been so wet our boots were soaked through, we did wonder if wearing gaiters meant the rain above funnelled down into our boots!! By morning I can’t say they were dry but they were definitely wearable with a fresh pair of socks!
After a bacon butty breakfast in the cafe we set off. We walked nearly ten miles, passing the half way point on the Wolds Way. We passed through some classic wolds, deep sided dry valleys, on our way to Wharram le Street.
We also walked through Wharram Percy, we visited there a couple of months before the walk as it was somewhere which sounded very interesting but we knew we would be too tired by that stage of the walk to linger. Wharram Percy is a deserted medieval village, only the walls of the church remain and the imprints in the fields where cottages were. It was deserted when the landowner decided to change from strip arable farming to the more profitable sheep farming, it sounds a bit like the land clearance that went on in Scotland about the same time.
We were picked up by Mal from the Goaties at Wharram le Street. We used the Goaties for our baggage transfer for the first five days, there are a few companies around who do this but the Goaties are the only ones I know about who will collect the walkers as well. They were great, a lovely friendly service who I will definitely use again. As we obviously didn’t know exactly what time we would want collecting, Mal had asked me to keep him updated on our progress, so I sent messages, when we left Fridaythorpe, ‘enjoying coffee in Thixendale’ ‘ Having lunch in Deepdale’…he admitted my messages made him smile but they were great as he could see how fast (or not!)we walked.
Mal dropped us off at the Ramblers Rest B&B where we stayed for two nights. It was very comfortable but there was no where nearby to eat, we needed a taxi go go to the nearest town which would prove expensive. So we decided to try one of those mountain meals, the dried version. By chance we both bought the same one, chili con carne. We added boiling water and waited the allotted time…it was absolutely vile!!! Maybe if you’re up a mountain it doesn’t taste too bad, but we coudn’t eat it! Luckily I’d also bought two puddings in sachets, chocolate puddings that we heated up in the kettle…and we had lots of snacks too! Next time we’ll just take a pot noodle!
Day seven we got a taxi back to Wharram le street and walked over ten miles to West Heslerton. We had quite a laugh that day as when we were dropped off there were two gents also getting out of a taxi on the other side of the road. They asked which way we were going, I hadn’t got my bearings yet and pointed up a road, ‘That way!’ My friend said ‘No we’re not, we’re going that way!!’
A few miles later and my friend got a message from her OH who was our taxi service for the rest of the walk, ‘Use the rope’ We didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. We were also laughing about how the different guide books vary, mine talked about the amazing views, my friends talked about nettles and steep hills! One comment it made was how someone with a sense of humour made one of the signposts…
…that was an indication of the steepness of the hill! The rope was along side the path to haul yourself up on! It was actually a lot better than I thought it would be when I first saw it, the rope worked very well, probably easier and cheaper than making steps all the way up. I certainly would have struggled big time without the rope. The photo doesn’t do it justice, it was steep!! When I commented on it on the facebook page, someone else just commented ‘I hate that sh******ng hill!!’
We were then wondering how on earth my friends OH knew about the rope. It turned out he had chatted to the two gents we saw first thing and they had told him to tell us to use the rope!
Day 8 was nearly nine miles to Staxton Wold. A good walk, I took the opportunity of photographing all the wild flowers which had featured on our walk. We always do a photobook of our walks, so I can do a page of the flowers. This is meadowsweet surrounding one of the five mile marker posts. We came to love these marker posts, ticking off the miles, it’s a lovely feature which we’ve not come across on previous walks. On the sides it told you how far you’d walked and how far to go.
There was also a lovely old track passing some very old wizen hawthorn trees…
Day nine was our last day, eleven miles to Filey. I nearly had a bit of a wobble when my friend pointed to a distant headland and said it was Filey Brigg, the end of our walk. It was a couple of miles further when I said it couldn’t be as the direction was wrong, luckily the end was much nearer! It was wet and miserable in the morning, but it cleared up in the afternoon as we walked through the town to the seaside.
The end of the walk is on the top of that headland, Filey Brigg, it’s also the end of the Cleveland Way which we walked back in 2019. Here we are sat on the stone seat that marks the end…
…tired but happy! We did it!
It felt quite a challenge, but it is five years since we last did a long distance walk, we’re five years older and we hadn’t been able to do much in the way of practise walks. It’s also the longest we’ve walked in one stretch, we’ve usually managed to do some of the walk before hand and just walked for 5 to 7 days, 9 days walking was a long time….we’re already thinking about which walk we’re going to do next year, the Swale Way is the top contender at the moment.
thecraftycreek 