...nothing but footprints

Goathland is one of the most popular places in the North York Moors National Park.  It's a pretty, picture-postcard moorland village with hotels, gift shops, tea rooms and a North Yorkshire Moors Railway station which teems with visitors in the summer months.  The beautiful surrounding countryside of heather moorland, rocky streams and cascading waterfalls has been drawing tourists here since at least the nineteenth century.  In more recent years the area has become famed for its screen appearances.  Harry Potter fans may recognise Goathland Station as Hogsmeade, the final destination of the Hogwarts Express, with many of the train journeys to Hogwarts being filmed along the North Yorkshire Moors Railway line.  The village of Goathland itself starred as the fictional Aidensfield in the popular television series Heartbeat, a crime series set in the 1960s which ran to 372 episodes between 1992 and 2010.  Although it's been over five years since the cameras were rolling in Goathl

On a bright and frosty morning in early February we decided to revisit the Yorkshire Wolds.  There had been a fall of snow earlier in the week which had mostly melted away from the lower ground but was still laying quite thickly up on the North York Moors.  Anticipating a lighter covering on the Wolds, we wrapped up warmly and drove out to the village of Thixendale. The roads approaching the village were unsalted and very icy in places, particularly in the valley bottoms where the shadows of the hillsides had kept the sunlight at bay.  I had plotted a route out of the village following the Yorkshire Wolds Way to begin with before turning to follow the route of the Centenary Way in a large arc, eventually to rejoin the Yorkshire Wolds Way again for the return to Thixendale.  I believed our route was to be approximately 12 miles in length, which allowed us plenty of time to get back to the car before darkness fell, at around 6 p.m. We had only taken a few short steps away from our car