No Fracking Way march happening right now! #nofrackingwayuk

I received an email yesterday evening from Andrew Cooper, one of a group undertaking a No Fracking Way protest march across Yorkshire and Lancashire this week. Regular blog readers may already have read my anti-fracking posts and will know I am a keen walker so I am happy to support this protest, albeit virtually and from two thousand miles away.

What is the No Fracking Way?
The ‘No Fracking Way’ is a 5 day protest march from the Yorkshire Fracking site at Kirby Misperton to the Lancashire Fracking site at Preston New Road in Blackpool. A core group of Green Party activists are walking the 120 miles between the 2 points starting on Wednesday 8th March and finishing on Sunday 12th March. Along the way these walkers will be highlighting the dangers of Fracking to local communities and the global environment. They will also be talking about cleaner alternatives to Fracking such as the different types of renewable energy, and how energy efficiency programmes for our homes can help reduce how much energy we consume.

As well as the walk itself, there are events planned en route including evening gigs and talks in York, Harrogate, Skipton, Burnley and Kirkham. Check this page of the No Fracking Way website for details.

And if you want to join part of the walk, No Fracking Way left Kirby Misperton at 7:30 this morning (ouch!) on a 29 mile hike as far as Brafferton. Further days' walks are broken down into between 19 and 25 mile segments and there is a detailed break down of the schedule Here.

Ingleton Waterfalls Trail and the best cake shop in the country

We received a lovely email from our friend Barbara earlier today. She was

Ingleton Waterfalls Trail 

primarily in contact discussing October's Danny Schmidt UK tour about which we are all very excited. (If you don't yet know his music, pop by his website and take a listen. He's an amazing songwriter!) Barbara also said "Steph and you should win a British Tourism Association/Ramblers award for all the good stuff she writes, and walks you plan!" Praise indeed and would anyone like to take her up on that award?

Yesterday was a pretty perfect summer's day and we took advantage of it in order to sneak back across county borders to Ingleton in Yorkshire. The pretty village has wonderful shops - more about them later - and is also the site of the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail - exactly what it says on the tin. The 8 kilometre Trail has been in existence since April 1885 and is visited by thousands of people every year. We didn't expect to have the same solitude as on our Fell walk and the Trail was busy, but not overwhelmingly so. Entrance is £6 per adult (£3 for kids) which includes parking and turned out to be excellent value. I would recommend stout footwear as most of the route is rock and earth which can get slippery. We saw a few visitors struggling in sandals.

Some calm between the falls 

We began by walking up the River Twiss away from Ingleton village. The

trail is through a wooded gorge with sheer rock sides, lots of moss and lichen, and dappled shade. We were serenaded all the way by the babbling of the river. It isn't particularly deep at this time of year, but we could tell from the size of some of the deposited rocks how powerful it could become. The Trail is open all year (except Christmas Day) and I imagine walking it would be a completely different experience in winter snow or spring floods. There is quite a distance of river walk before the first of the four waterfalls on the Twiss. I read that the Pecca Falls, as the first three are known, have a combined drop of 30 metres. We weren't as blown away by them as we were by the combined Low Force and High Force waterfalls, but the setting here is especially beautiful and reminded me in places of the stunning Huelgoat in France.

There are a couple of oddities along the way, one of which is this money

Ingleton Waterfalls Trail money tree 

tree. If you look closely - you might need to click into the photo in order to see a larger version of the image - the bark has been stuffed with thousands of coins. Apparently done for luck, most of them are quite modern 2p pieces, but a notice claimed there are antique coins among the multitudes too. The tree itself is definitely no longer alive and was lying horizontally, presumably having fallen from the weight of too much money. There's probably a moral in there somewhere! Elsewhere on the route, another fallen tree trunk was covered with flat slate stones making it appear like a long cairn.

Thornton Force is the pride of the walk and is considered to be one of the

finest waterfalls in the Yorkshire Dales, but unfortunately my phone camera couldn't cope with its majesty, bright sunlight and deep shade all in the same photo so the image to the right is one of its lesser neighbours. Still pretty! Thornton Force's big namedropping claim to fame is that JMW Turner visited in 1816 and drew a sketch of its 14 metre plunge. Said sketch was reproduced on a signboard for posterity!

My abiding memory of the Trail will surely be steps. There are lots and lots which isn't that surprising considering that we would need to have climbed above the height of one waterfall in order to see its preceding one. Once past Thornton Force however, there is a very steep flight and then the Trail crosses out onto public access farmland for a while. There are great views out over limestone cliffs and scars. We even saw Ingleborough in the distance across Raven Scar and weren't tempted to divert and climb it. Well, we were a little bit, but it looked a long way.

A brief pause at the small cafe for a delicious local ice cream was

accompanied by a loud wailing siren followed by an anti-climactic 'crump'. The reason for both sounds was the proximity of a large quarry - a real blot on the landscape. On the flyer for the Trail, holiday home cabins are advertised at a reasonable price for a small park in the middle of such fantastic walking country. Now the online description for these had been slightly tempting so we thought we might take a look if the Trail passed close enough by. It does and when we got this pictured view, we realised why the price seemed so low. Can you just make out the first two holiday homes in front of the trees? Surprisingly the blurb for Falls Park makes no mention of the quarry!

Our return walk brought us down the River Doe, again along picturesque

Part of the Flumenty And Fluffin selection 

river banks and passing yet another three waterfalls as well as some intriguing rusted industrial remains which looked to be mining or quarrying related, but weren't explained. We expected to emerge back in the car park, but were actually diverted into the village itself which is very pretty and has a good selection of enticing shops. We wandered into the fabulously named Frumenty And Fluffin and immediately wanted to buy a house in Ingleton! This must be the best cake shop in the country! There's a mouthwatering array from which to choose and the slices are huge. And I mean HUGE! I had a gorgeous coffee cake with perfectly just-bitter icing and I almost couldn't finish it all. The same was true for Dave with his slice of Bakewell Tart. Amazingly, both cake slices together only cost us £3.90, but disappointingly the shop is up for sale so you'll need to get there quickly to try the baking for yourself!

If you can't just up sticks to Ingleton in the next few weeks, I have other news of good edible treats: I got an email from Whittard Of Chelsea a couple of days ago announcing their Summer Sale. They are offering a generous 30% discount off selected teas, coffees, hot chocolates, gifts and tableware. I love their tableware - and their hot chocolate! (Plus, if you visit the Whittard Of Chelsea website through one of these links, I would get a small percentage of any purchase price as commission. That would be nice!)

Our final North York Moors walk - Square Corner to Kepwick

We hope not our final walk here ever as the North York Moors are

The poshest 'shut the gate' sign we've seen so far 

gorgeous and we have hardly scratched the surface of walking opportunities in the area, but today was our last walk of our current three week stay. We don't know when we might be coming this way again. Dave found us an eight mile loop without too much in the way of really strenuous ups and downs which started not far outside the wonderfully named village of Osmotherley. There is a car park at Square Corner and, had we continued along its road for another mile or so, we would have joined our 15-mile-epic-walk route. Instead, today, we began our walk by setting out towards the hill called Black Hambleton.

Dave was sporting his new Meindl walking boots and Berghaus

Happy hiker! 

waterproof jacket, both of which we realised needed to be replaced after our rainy outing the other day! I love this photo of him looking so happy! As it turned out, he was equally happy by the time we got back because, despite my insisting that he carry his trainers all the way (just in case) his boots were comfortable with no rubs or blisters at all. Our walk was almost entirely on tracks - stony, chalky or gravelly. I was surprised at one point to see chalk grassland that looked incredibly similar to the South Downs. This was above the Forestry Commission site of Silton Wood which we skirted to begin with and walked back through the centre at the end. There wasn't much in the way of far-reaching views early on, although the neat stone wall in the way was quite an impressive sight in its own right.

Our lunch stop was in the village of Kepwick, just in front of the ever-so

Rhododendrons on the moors above Kepwick 

grand gates of Kepwick Hall. We had begun to see extensive areas of flowering rhododendrons on the hills above so I had thought there must have been a country mansion somewhere, but it was tricky to see clearly as it was set so far back from the path. We also saw a large area of disturbed ground just as we began to descend towards Kepwick. It reminded us of the abandoned flint mines at Grime's Graves and we wondered if these lumps and bumps were evidence of similar activity here.

Abandoned mine workings? 

Heading towards Silton from Kepwick, our route shrank to a narrow footpath across farmers fields. We were suspiciously observed by a half dozen cows with two young calves who didn't appreciate us crossing their field. Then we also found ourselves having to cross a field with a single bull in it. I am always a little nervy of cows and, especially, bulls, but this one looked quite young and disinterested in us!

Back on stony track again and ascending through Silton Forest we saw

Marking National Cycle Network
Route 65 

an amazing machine which was felling, stripping and sectioning pine trees - all in one operation and only needing one person at the controls. It was fascinating to watch. I also spotted a sculpted waymarker which was the spitting image of one on the Cuckoo Trail in Sussex. I had only really noticed its outline before and not read it closely. I learned that 1000 of these were put up all across the country on the then new National Cycle Network. That would explain the similarity! The markers were funded by the RBS and, much like the bank itself, are now looking a bit the worse for wear. Now, you have all signed the RBS petition I posted, haven't you?! It was remarkably muggy in the forest as we didn't get any of the breeze that we have been used to up on the moors. It was lovely to see sunshine through the branches though.

Our whole walk was about four and a half hours, including a reasonably leisurely lunch stop. We saw a few bees, a couple of butterflies including a beautiful blue one, a stoat or a weasel, a curlew (probably) and several swooping swallows. There were also more other walkers about on this route than we have seen since Roseberry Topping. Wednesday must be Walking Day around here! I will be sorry to leave the North York Moors. Brian at South View Farm campsite has been a good host and we wish him and his son all the best. Tomorrow (or today by the time I stop waffling and publish this) we are moving further north again. My next post will be from near to Alnwick! Perhaps Dave will stop serenading every walk with this song by then? Perhaps not. There are more moors in Northumberland!

We go walking In The Rain! Clay Bank to Bloworth Crossing

Those of you who know us well will already know that we simply don't

Do weather, but after three days stuck indoors avoiding showers and chilly winds even Dave was ready to brave the elements. Dressed in all the waterproof gear we own, we drove to the Forestry Commission car park at Clay Bank, overshot it, and parked in the next large layby just before the spot where the Cleveland Way crosses the B1257. We swapped cheery hellos with a family picnicking in the layby - in the rain - and took the Cleveland Way uphill towards Bloworth Crossing. Our plan was a ten mile loop although, at this point, I wouldn't have been surprised if Dave had already starting suggesting going home. It's no fun when your glasses are permanently blurred with water.

Instead we followed the practically-cobbled Cleveland Way up into the

Not a great day for views 

clouds. Actually into clouds! The wind did get stronger as we ascended but it was still warm and we were both wishing we weren't quite so well dressed by the time we got to the top. Dave had also begun to suspect that his waterproof coat was no longer as waterproof as it had once been. The track was very clear which was fortunate as visibility was down to probably about 100m along the top and I was fascinated by the swirling cloud that I could feel on my face as we walked through it. Wildlife wasn't as obvious as usual. We did see skylarks, what we are calling a curlew, a couple of rabbits, and several grim-looking sheep. This was my first time out with my new walking poles and I am very pleased with them. Not having had shock absorbers on my last pair, that give took a bit of getting used to, but once I got the hang of it they were great.

Our route called us to take a right turn but we couldn't find it anywhere,

I'm sure that cloud is chasing us! 

so we continued on the Cleveland Way to Bloworth Crossing. This used to be where a railway - from ironstone mines on the moors to Battersby - crossed an ancient drove road. Vintage photographs online show a dozen or so railway workers cottages in a small settlement. However now there is only a small information placard there. Another way to our missing path should have materialised just after Bloworth Crossing, but we chose not to go that way because it was just a faint sheep trail setting out across the moors. We were concerned that if we lost sight of Bloworth Crossing and the Cleveland Way, and then the tiny path petered out, we could get ourselves very lost indeed. We do walk with phone GPS and an Ordnance Survey map, plus we had our lunch and a flask of coffee, so it was tempting to stride out regardless. Commonsense won the day though so we paused to eat our sandwiches before turning back the way we had come. We would still have a respectable seven mile walk and were pretty proud of ourselves for being there at all!

We saw our first Other Walkers on the return leg - a group of nine who

Not so happy here 

loomed up out of the mist like something out of a zombie movie. Their expressions ranged from cheerful to wry to miserable. I loved this stone marker, engraved at some point in the past with the North York Moors equivalent of a smiley face, and the centre of a bridleway sign informed us that we were temporarily on the Wainwright Coast To Coast walk. Did Julia Bradbury ever do that one for TV?

The rain had let up by this time leaving us just with the swirling clouds to contend with. Our path did suddenly become more popular though and we were overtaken by two more walkers, a fell runner and a mountain biker on the steep downhill back to our car. Going downhill also allowed us a sudden improvement in visibility as we came out below the cloud level again. Dave says the mist's effect was more intense but similar to his experience of a cataract. Scary stuff.

Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk 

Our walk was just under four hours all told and we were pleased with that. I liked having seen the moors 'under their duvet' this one time, but the lack of distant views did make for a very different walk and we both agreed we prefer being able to see for miles. We didn't get too cold and I stayed nice and dry. Poor Dave ended up soggy through both his coat and his boots though so we are now considering whether to make a return visit to Go Outdoors for replacements (there's a sale on!) or whether just to never walk in the rain again!

I'll finish up by saying Congratulations to everyone who has been doing the Refugee Tales Walk this past week - 'a Walk in solidarity with Refugees and Detainees'. Our friend Andy had signed up to walk the 80 miles from Dover to Crawley and I think the group should be arriving at their destination tomorrow.

Still smiling at Bloworth Crossing 

North York Moors walk to Commondale

I'm backtracking a couple of days now in order to tell you about a walk

Our moor path 

we did on Monday. It was about eight miles in all and, at its farthest point, took in the very pretty village of Commondale. We started by parking in a big layby off the A171. (Just past Charltons heading towards Whitby the road splits to climb a hill. At the top, as the road merges again is the layby. Parking is free plus there's lots of room and a tea van!) We crossed over the A171 and started along the clearly signposted footpath. Grass and earth at first, once the ground becomes boggy someone has kindly laid lots and lots of slabs to walk upon so we had both a dry path and a clear view of it heading away over the horizon. I do love a path that looks to continue forever! The volume of water was a surprise to us as our previous walks around this area have been on noticeably dry terrain. This moor had little becks and pools, one of which had a miniature waterfall trickling into it and this stunning orange plant growing under the water. We commented that most of the water had a brownish tinge to it and this reminded us of our first holiday in Scotland. We stayed in a rural log cabin near Oban.

Anyone know what this stunning
orange plant is? 

Our lunch stop was a little early, but in the shelter of the valley. We

Stained glass windows at Commondale church 

descended a road through Sandhill Bank which looks like an abandoned quarry, and sat on a bench in the middle of Commondale. Commondale used to be a brickmaking village which is why their church is so different from any others around here. The red bricks glow in the sun and I love their trio of stained glass windows. Sheep and chickens wander at will through the village and I saw one plaintive 'please shut the gate' sign because 'sheep eat my garden'. A couple of little cottages there are for sale and we were particularly taken with one that has access to the beck!

Back uphill after lunch and 'Meml' on our Ordnance Survey map turned

War memorial near Commongate 

out to be this elegant memorial for two First World War soldiers, presumably local men. The stone is well away from the village and completely surrounded by moorland, but had a relatively recent wreath at its base so is obviously still a place of remembrance. We disturbed several grouse which flapped off squawking indignantly and got us pondering a question: do people 'grouse' because it sounds like the bird, or are the birds so named because of their disgruntled cries? The Online Etymological Dictionary notes a possible Old French root for the human action, but not for the bird name. On a roll, we also considered whether 'pharmacy' and 'farm' have the same origins. 'Pharma' is definitely from Greek and 'farm' must come from the French 'ferme', but does 'ferme' come from an original Greek meaning for the domestic growing of plants for medicinal purposes? Or do they just sound the same in modern English? It turns out that I need a different dictionary to answer that one, but 'farm' in an agricultural sense is pretty recent so it's probably just coincidental! I love language!

Although this walk was only just over half of our previous fifteen mile epic, we both found it more tiring which baffled us. Perhaps a greater proportion being uphill was the reason, perhaps the stronger wind at times, or perhaps just one of those random walking occurrences! Not including our lunch stop, we were on the move for just under four hours. Our car was patiently waiting in the layby, but the tea van had already shut up shop. I really need to remember our thermos before we set out, not at the point where I want a hot drink.

Beautiful moors and a tiny Dave 

My longest walk ever: 15 miles across the North York Moors

It seems that Dave tempted fate recently. In a conversation with our

Cairn at the top of the hill above Chop Gate 

friends Chris and Marta he mentioned our then recent 10 mile walk and said that we'd never equal their recent 15 miles. About a week later, and with a combination of gorgeous sunshine and stunning scenery, we did! The North York Moors are a fabulous place to walk. Clicking this link will take you to a Google map of the route we actually walked - as opposed to the one we planned. Several of the paths wind more than the straight lines imply so we are confident of more than 15 miles 'on the ground'. We took a picnic lunch, should also have taken an afternoon snack, and the walk was just over seven hours plus twenty-five minutes for lunch.

Dave had planned us an eightish-mile route starting in the village of

View back downhill to Chop Gate 

Chop Gate. Their village hall car park is accessible to walkers and I loved their Pay And Display system: take a numbered ticket as if for a supermarket deli counter and drop a pound coin into the box. Just a pound! Brilliant! Our route started uphill straight from the car park and we jockeyed for position several times on the climb with another couple who had parked at the same time and were following a five-mile route cut from the Northern Echo newspaper. All our best walks seem to start with a knackering incline. This one was half an hour and very steep in places, but with a cushioned grassy surface. The cairn in the first photo was a welcome sight marking the top of the hill, yet, strangely, looked somehow different at the day's end so we weren't sure of our descent!

We walked on mostly sandy paths and saw dozens of hides for grouse

Babbling brook 

shooting parties as well as what looked like cat litter trays everywhere which we assumed were also grouse-related. We did also see several of the birds themselves - they seem just as daft as pheasants. Babbling brooks were remarkable by their absence - we only spotted a couple including this one and another by Rye Farm where we perched on a convenient pile of cut logs to eat our lunch. Other bird sightings included lapwings, curlews (probably) and another peregrine falcon. This one flew low over us so we got a very good look. There were skylarks everywhere and I enjoyed listening to their songs tumbling from the wide blue sky. It was very hot at times so our carefully packed fleece jackets weren't needed at all and I actually ended up with a little sunburn! Sunburn in June? Who'd have thought it! An unexpected 'No Entry' sign started us on a detour which we then compounded by adding a good burst of enthusiasm. During the day we managed to walk 'off map' from two sides which made navigation interesting and which wasn't helped by an almost complete lack of phone signal. Were we downhearted though? Surprisingly not (much)! A tall mast provided a visible anchor and we just kept striding out enjoying the fabulous views and colours around us.

We were both tired by the time we did get back to Chop Gate and,

I loved the colours in the heathers and lichens 

fortunately, the descent was a firm grassed surface which I could walk practically normally - instead of my usual Bambi-on-ice tiptoeing when faced with scree. We were confident of having got into double figures of miles, but didn't know for sure how far we had gone until Dave gmapped the route today. This was the longest walk I have ever done and is also the longest we have undertaken together. Dave did complete 15 miles previously - from Falmer to Alfriston - but said he felt much better physically this time. I think we both could have done more had we needed to, but it was a relief to see a waiting car!

I'll finish up talking about our walk with this great image of the moors

Oh look, more moor!

rolling off into the distance and please keep scrolling for an important petition underneath ...

I received the following email from SumOfUs this morning and it has made me pretty angry with not only the Conservatives but also everybody who voted them in! Scarcely back a minute and they are already starting to sell off taxpayers' assets at knock-down prices. Please sign the SumOfUs petition, then tweet or email your MP to protest this waste of Our Money, share and reshare on social media, and generally throw a right hissy fit! The extra £13bn we won't be getting could make a huge difference right across Britain and we need to act fast to have any chance of keeping it.

SumOfUs said

"By George, he's gone and done it. It's official:

George Osborne has just announced Britain's biggest ever privatisation. He's going ahead and selling off RBS at a loss of £13bn -- a huge loss to the taxpayer. It's part of the rush to privatise Britain -- an ideological move to hand over power and profit to corporations.

But, we own 79% of RBS.

Rather than selling off our stake at a loss to the bankers who got us into this mess in the first place, the government should be finding ways to make the bank work for the good of the nation and using this as an opportunity to fix our broken banking system.

Just as he's pushing through £12bn of welfare cuts that will hit the poorest and most vulnerable in society, Osborne is prepared to sell RBS off at a £13bn loss. £13bn is enough to plug the gap, protecting our public services and preventing austerity."

Please sign and share now.

Micheline Robinson exhibition and a Wednesday in Whitby

For my readers in New Zealand, and I know from my stats that there are

a few from time to time, I would like to invite you to visit the Arts In Oxford gallery on South Island this month. I discovered artist Micheline Robinson via a randomly-spotted tweet, loved what I saw, and supported her Kickstarter campaign to get her work framed and transported ready for her first solo exhibition, Essence Of A Landscape, which is being held there. In return I received these four gorgeous cards. (Thanks to Gemma for posting them on.) The green works represent what Micheline is currently creating and I have put the one top-left, entitled Italian Garden, up on Bailey's wall. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, we are unable to visit Essence Of A Landscape ourselves, but if you are more local, please drop in and pass on my regards! The exhibition started today, June the 10th, with its Gala opening this Saturday coming, and continues until July the 1st 2015.

We unexpectedly revisited the New Zealand theme in Whitby today, at the

20th century printed Tapa fabric from Fiji 

Captain Cook Memorial Museum which is a restored town house on the town's harbour. The young James Cook stayed here while he was apprenticed to the house's owner, Captain John Walker and the building is now an excellent small museum and reasonably priced at £4.80 for me. We were warmly greeted by an enthusiastic guide and enjoyed exploring the house. The museum contains lots of letters to and from Cook as well as fascinating early maps of the Pacific and Americas from when much of the coastlines was unknown. Two rooms are furnished in 18th century Quaker style. Best of all for me is the 2015 special exhibition in the attic of Polynesian and New Zealand traditional fabrics which included this finely woven cloak made of tree bark! The Polynesian Tapa fabric is also made of plant fibre, beaten to tissue paper thinness by hand and coloured by a process similar to delicate bronze rubbing. Amazing in a culture that had no metal tools, simply wood, bone, stone and plant fibres and good to learn that the skills are being rediscovered by artists such as Jo Torr.

Hand woven bark cloak 

Before the Cook Museum, we marched up the famous 199 steps and

Whitby Abbey 

through the grounds of St Mary's Church to reach the iconic ruins of Whitby Abbey. Another for our collection of places-destroyed-by-Henry-VIII, Whitby Abbey has a wonderful presence. Its skeletal remains tower far above visitors and I loved the way the sandstone pillars and blocks have eroded. The site is maintained by English Heritage and paying to get in is compulsory as the high stone wall all around obscures any good view otherwise! I didn't mind the £6.80 though as this is one place I very much wanted to see. The audio guide is informative, if a little twee, and I now want to learn more about the one-time Abbess, Aelfflaed and her mother, also a Whitby Abbess, Hilda. A few finds are on show in the Visitor Centre and we could walk freely around the Abbey where only the towers were blocked off. I can easily see how Bram Stoker could have been inspired here and plentiful copies of Dracula were on sale in the English Heritage shop!

Whitby Abbey 

I was disappointed not to see a single goth in Whitby, but it was a

Eroded pillar at Whitby Abbey 

gorgeously sunny day today so perhaps wouldn't have suited them! We took advantage of the new Park and Ride which has only been open since last year. The fare was £4.60 for us both - there is a bus pass concession if you know to take your card - and this was equivalent to four hours' parking in the town centre, but without the hassles of clogged streets and actually finding a space. Whitby is somewhere we decided we definitely don't want to live! It was very busy and I can only imagine the chaos on a sunny weekend or during high season. Our plan originally was to sample the Whitby fish and chips for lunch. There are many chippies to choose from, but most involved queuing or were large establishments that I wasn't sure could be as good as they claimed. We ended up in a pretty cafe called Crumbs and Cobbles where I had the rare treat of a veggie All Day Breakfast. It was delicious and so massive that I am still no hungry now and it's gone 9pm!

In 'other news', an email from Go Outdoors could well be of interest to other Camping And Caravanning Club members. If you have a Go Outdoors discount card and are a CCC member, you can now get an extra 10% off the discounted price and that's online as well as in store. Get shopping!

Poppies and cow parsley by Donkey Road, Whitby 

The best curd tart in Yorkshire

We dusted off our bicycles today, Dave for the first time since Hope and

The best curd tart in Yorkshire 

me for the first time since Cawston. Norfolk already seems months ago even though it is only really four and a half weeks! Our nearest shopping town of Stokesley is a couple of miles away along mostly deserted country lanes that to experienced cyclists would be flat and to us have just enough incline that we had quite a sense of achievement by the time we got home with our heavy rucksacks.

There are several cycle hoops by an elegant floral incarnation in the centre of town. Stokesley has lots of pretty flower displays that I think are the work of SPIOTA. Our first stop was Age UK whose '3 for 99p' sign by outside book boxes proved irresistible! The charity shops here have a good quality of stock and haven't overwhelmed the town as there are also lots of small independent gift and homeware shops and a couple of clothing boutiques. We saw the historic Pack Horse Bridge which apparently has been in existence since at least the early 1600s. There is a parish record of its repair in 1632. We also enjoyed strolling the elegant Georgian and Regency streets. Many of the parking areas are cobbled and I thought it all felt more Georgette Heyer than James Herriot!

Pack Horse Bridge, Stokesley 

We failed to find a new hand blender in Boyes as our one finally blended itself to pieces while making a carrot and potato soup for lunch, but I did take the opportunity to buy the local specialty of a Curd Tart from a shop that was awarded the Best In Yorkshire, Thomas The Baker. I was expecting something along the lines of custard tart, misleading myself with the assumption of lemon curd. Instead, the tart has more the crumbly consistency of a bakewell with a sweet cheese flavour instead of almond. My verdict is an excellent choice to accompany a good cuppa, but not the most exciting cake ever!

Flower displays in Stokesley 

Dammit! We're going to need a new awning!

Our campsite here at Great Busby is an open fields and it's pretty breezy

Dave in a buttercup meadow 

all the time. We had put our awning up partly as somewhere wind-free to sit and were enjoying eating al fresco, but as of yesterday morning is in a crumpled, snapped and torn heap awaiting a visit to the local tip. Grrr! We had seen the forecast for stronger winds, nowhere near as strong as at Roquetas, and thought we would be ok, which indeed we were all through the night - sleep being overrated anyway! Then, a slight change of wind direction as we were eating our breakfast and Dave looked up to comment that he can see the awning roof bars through the window. Normally they are much higher than that! We struggled to get the remnants dismantled before there was any damage to Bailey and succeeded, but with one splintered carbon fibre pole, one very bent roof pole, a large tear and, of course one repaired small tear and a sewn up door, we thought it beyond saving. So, we are now back in the same position as in August 2013 and looking for porch awning or full awning recommendations. Please comment below or tweet me your suggestions!

Practically all of yesterday was spent cooped up out of the wind so we

I think this bridge had a tree-related
accident 

were eager to get out walking today. Dave plotted a route of about three hours starting from Bailey and circumnavigating Great Broughton. The countryside hereabouts is gorgeous and we strode through plenty of spectacular scenery such as the buttercup meadow pictured above. Unfortunately, several local landowners, much like their Sussex counterparts, seem to delight in obliterating footpaths and obscuring signs so we had several opportunities to admire scenes twice - as we retraced our steps - and might have indulged in a couple of squabbles over the map. Dave uses Mapyx Quo software to view our Ordnance Survey maps and we need to check how up to date their versions are as the entire of Stokesley Business Park was noticeably absent! As was the footpath directing us to it thanks to an equestrian centre's sign removal and dungheap piled over the route. Someone has gone to considerable effort for walkers though because there is a dedicated detour footpath going all around the Park, hedged and green and making us feel still rural despite the dozens of industrial units a few metres away. Thank you whoever created this path!

Ellerbeck was our lunch spot, perched on a large rock on the bank to eat

our ham sandwiches before walking alongside the beck for a way. We had a few lucky wildlife sightings - I saw a goldfinch and Dave topped that with a roe deer. Then there was a huge furry caterpillar and a pair of hawk-like birds which may have been peregrine falcons. We watched one flying for several minutes but, as often seems the case, it didn't look quite like anything on the RSPB bird identifier website. Surprisingly, I hardly saw any butterflies all day and maybe only a half dozen bees throughout our whole five hour walk. This struck me as very odd because there were flowers in bloom everywhere. I'm glad that we try to support beekeepers by buying local honey wherever we are. It initially appears more expensive per jar than the generic supermarket stuff, but the flavour is generally far more intense so we use less per serving (unless Dave's mixing it with his favourite Fage yoghurt!).

My HiGear trousers were definitely a good purchase. They remained comfortable all day and were able to cope with temperature changes from cool winds to fairly hot sunshine. They are a bit pollen-strewn though so I think more laundry will be needed tomorrow. We are also planning to cycle into Stokesley for a proper look around. I forgot to mention finding a warm welcome at the Jet Miners Inn this afternoon. Underestimating our walk length meant we needed a refreshing drink! Our landlady reassured us that there were still lots of daylight hours in which to find our way home! They had this great sign up in the back bar. I couldn't find any references to the electric brush invention on Wikipedia though. Am I failing to get the joke?

At the Jet Miners Inn

The sun is shining on Great Busby

The North York Moors are easily as gorgeous as the Peak District, I think!

Walking the Cleveland Way 

We had our first short walk this afternoon and there are stunning views out over miles and miles of countryside from the top of the hill just behind our current campsite, South View Farm. The Camping And Caravanning Club are our hosts here and the CS site, between Carlton In Cleveland and Great Busby, is an open field, again with good views. It's fairly windy, but warm and sunny and pretty peaceful other than the eerie cries of peacocks from a neighbouring farm. (Dave recognised the sound - he's good at identifying birds by ear.) We certainly didn't expect to get warmer as we trekked further north! The only facilities are electric, water and waste but then the site is only £12 a night. We've patched the tear and got the awning up allowing us to eat a lunch and two evening meals outside. It was so soporifically nice out there early evening today that I struggled not to doze off to my audiobook!

I will just jump back to York to tell you about a lovely garden nursery and farm shop on the outskirts of the city, in the village of Bishopthorpe. The Brunswick Organic Nursery And Craft Workshop is not only a mouthful (!), but also a charitable enterprise offering workplace opportunities to adults with learning difficulties. We had a lunch invite to old friends of Dave's, Frances and John, and I was able to create a giftset of jams to take. Brunswick also has fresh veg, bird food and feeders, and fun gifts for gardeners. Pop in if you're ever nearby.

We supported local shops in Stokesley this morning visiting two butchers and also getting lucky (or not from a parking point of view) by arriving in town on market day! The town is pretty with a vibrant High Street and the small market added an extra bustle. We got our veg there and also two fresh mackerel from a fishmonger's van. There is also a Co-Op and a great shop called Boyes which sells an amazing variety of products - we got sealant for the shower, a trivet, a four plug gang and a roll of cling film! Stokesley is only about three miles from our campsite so I am planning to walk or cycle in on a quieter afternoon next week to have a proper look around.

Our gorgeous view 

We have another anniversary to observe in my fortieth year - the 125th anniversary of Bram Stoker's visit to Whitby. The town is on our to-do list and apparently we must eat fish and chips there, but the CS owner here made sure to tell us not to try visiting on a weekend. In a fun coincidence, one of my free AudioSYNC downloads this week is a full cast recording of Dracula which I have taken as a good omen!

And, I almost forgot, I have won a book too thanks to Sophie and Suze's Netgalley Challenge which has now finished but had several mentions in my recent book reviews. I will be receiving a signed copy of The Judas Scar by Amanda Jennings. Very excited!

More good news from 38 Degrees today. I am trying to do my bit to

reduce food waste and, thanks to publicity including a now 170,000 strong petition, Tesco is the first UK supermarket to announce that they will donate all their unsold food to charity. "The Tesco’s move is a positive step, but unless it’s inscribed in law, tonnes of perfectly good food will still end up in landfill sites. So while it’s hot in the news, let’s ramp up the pressure on the government to force all big food chains not to waste their unsold food. Momentum is on our side. Green MP Caroline Lucas has championed the campaign since the beginning, and now Hackney Labour MP Diane Abbott has submitted a parliamentary motion calling for it to become law." If you haven't already done so, please sign and share the petition too.

Enjoy 3 for 2 on all fruit, herbal and green teas at Twinings throughout June