Coast to Coast UK - Blakey Ridge to Egton Bridge

We must have looked like a line of forward slash symbols marching across a page, as the ten of us who left the haven of the Lion Inn at Blakey Ridge at 9 am today, walked across the edge of the moor, leaning into the cruel wind. The wind was cold and lazy, wanting to go straight through, rather than around us, and trying to blow us off the edge of the moor with every gust.

We had walked for an hour and covered 2 ½ miles from High Blakey Moor to Danby High Moor, but when we looked across the dale, we were still looking directly at the Lion Inn across the breach.  We soldiered on, battling the wind, which was sometimes blowing across our path, and sometimes pushing us on from behind. We turned onto Glaisdale Moor, our ranks quite spread out by then, each making our own way to the best of our abilities, and followed the line of Glaisdale Rigg.

At some point on the Rigg, Wallsy and I found a suitable large stone, there had not been one seat on the whole walk, and we had been hiking for two hours by then, so we sat for a few minutes to eat the chocolate bar which our hosts had included in our lunch bag. We had long anticipated our ‘Yorkie Bar’, imagining it to be some tasty treat unique to Yorkshire, perhaps with a toffee filling, or crunchy bits of something, but it was just a bar of plain milk chocolate. Despite our disappointment, it seemed to give us the boost we needed to keep us walking, and we pushed on. After 3 ½ hours of walking we had covered 9 miles – some sort of record for us!

New Zealand had been in the lead all morning, and I admired their tenacity as they ploughed into the wind, we eventually made a move on them and left them in our wake, when they too stopped for a break beside the track, just after we had got underway again. It was as we neared the village of Glaisdale however, that they suddenly reappeared and overtook us as we all travelled downhill into the village in search of somewhere to have a break and perhaps eat lunch.

The rain which had been threatening for some time, chose this moment to start, endowing us with intermittent light showers as we navigated our way through the village and down to the river Esk. We passed many seats scattered throughout the attractive village but rejected each one due to the inclement weather. It wasn’t until we climbed our way out of Glaisdale that we gratefully came across the Arncliffe Arms ‘Free House’. Australia and New Zealand arrived at the same time, and we all made a beeline for the door. Drinks were purchased and we settled into some convivial conversation,  moving to the outside tables where we ate our packed lunches before completing the remaining two miles to our destination for the day.

After a pretty walk past the railway station, a visit to the fabled Beggars Bridge, a pretty, but slightly muddy walk through the restful East Arncliffe Wood and a short road walk, we found ourselves face to face with the Horseshoe Hotel at Egton Bridge. It was only 3pm and we had covered 12 ½ miles for the day. After checking in and ‘lugging’ our luggage (I know where the word ‘luggage’ comes from now) up several short, twisty sets of stairs, we settled into our room for the night.

Once we had rested and changed our shoes we decided to take the short walk into the village, reached by crossing two sets of stepping stones over the river.  Wallsy was particularly keen to check out the nearby railway station, but we stopped along the way to check out the historic St Heddas church and learnt about ‘The Martyr of the Moors’, Nicholas Postgate first.  We then made our way to the very pretty railway station, with well kept platform gardens, before wandering back around the road and over the Esk River bridge to our hotel.

Coffee and cake in our room was the order of the day following our expedition, and after researching our options for the final day’s walk, we went downstairs to dinner. All in all, a very enjoyable day despite the wind.

 A windy day on the Moors

A random bothy on the Moor

Great Fryup Dale with distant ocean views

Some early flowering heather - I would love to come 

back to the Moors when it is all in bloom

Pretty Egton Railway Station

The old clock at Egton Station was still accurate

The stepping stone challenge