Day 11 C2C Chop Gate to Glaisdale
The picture to the right is of a vintage car we spotted whilst climbing out of Chop Gate.
The Buck Inn at Chop Gate had very comfortable rooms and I slept well, waking at 6.05am. We all packed our stuff and had the suitcases in reception before sitting down to breakfast at 7.30am.
Clive provided the bag to wrap my sausage in in readiness for lunch by the wayside. I made sure I’d had my fill of cereal and full english breakfast as I prefer to eat very little during the walk.
We set off at 8.20am and climbed out of Chop Gate onto the Bransdale Moor. There was quite a bit of climbing to do, but once it was over we stayed at more or less the same height until we descended into Glaisdale at the end of the walk, 19 miles later.
We again made good time with most of the walking on well formed tracks. We stopped at The Lion Inn (don’t ask me where) just before midday, ate lunch, and were back on the road, literally, by 12.15pm. I say literally because we decided against a footpath across the moors in favour of using a road to stay high and go around the head of the valley. The road walking made my feet sore, but it was fast progress.
We passed White Betty (a white painted stone) and a bit further on turned off the road onto another well made track to continue our journey across the North York Moors; this time I believe the moor was called Blakey.
UK has 75% of the world’s moors and the North York Moors make up a significant part of that figure. The moors have to be managed and this is done by caring for the bird population including curlews, golden plovers, merlins and inevitably grouse.
From the start of the day we saw numerous grouse butts where the shooters wait in hiding while the beaters drive the birds towards them. Once I get home I’ll upload an image or two of these grouse butts.
Back to the journey. It was just more of the same, walking across the moors Richard and I did see a couple of F15s flying overhead and Richard took some photos.
Later on we met a man on his daily climb out of Glaisdale and he informed us that these planes often flew low overhead whilst spotters from the army (they come up onto the moors in unmarked Land Rovers) would in be communication with the F15s to carry out low raid exercises.
We found Clive sat on a bench further down and stuck together as we walked into Glaisdale and found The Arncliffe Arms. We dumped our gear, showered and went down to a pleasant evening meal.
We’re going to bed now, and looking forward to the last day of walking - Glaisdale to Robin Hood’s Bay, 14 miles.