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Showing posts from 2014

Norber Erratics & Maughton Scar (Yorkshire Dales)

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I have a notebook that sits on my desk, permanently open at the first page.  The top of the page is headed "Walks I would like to do", below which there's a long, ever-increasing list of place names and routes.  It seems as though every time I visit a website or Facebook page for walkers I find yet another walk to add to this list.  And this doesn't even include the Lakeland "Wainwright" fells, of which I've climbed just over 20.  In fact, it's possibly because I've devoted so much of my spare time to Wainwright-bagging over the past year that not many walks have been crossed off my "to do" list. At the start of a week's leave in mid October I decided that it was about time I tackled at least a couple of my "must do" walks.  And so, with that purpose in mind, I arranged for a weekend's walking centred around the two walks at the very top of my list.  The weekend began with an early morning drive to the Yorkshire Dal

Newtondale, Simon Howe & Saltergate (North York Moors)

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What is it about steam trains that people love so much?  On the face of it, a huge chunk of metal, billowing out clouds of steam as it rattles its way along iron rails that cut through the landscape ought to be loathed by most lovers of the countryside.  And yet, for me at least, that's not the case at all.  The sight, sound and smell of a steam locomotive can't fail to make me smile, and if one of our walks just happens to follow the course of the North York Moors Railway, so much the better.  In early October we set off from the car park at the Hole of Horcum, midway between Pickering and Whitby, to undertake just such a walk. The route I'd planned was a circuit of just over 12 miles, crossing over sections of the railway line and passing two ancient moorland crosses along the way.  It was a pleasantly bright and warm autumn morning with a hazy blue sky and a hint of mistiness as we left the car park by the side of the A169 Pickering to Whitby road.  This particular car