East to West Photos: Day 18

(Back from our holidays, it’s time to return to the East to West Photos series)

Wed 6 April (0740-1520)
Distance: 17.2 miles (Tot: 313.6)
Weather: blue sky all around but a big cloud overhead

It wasn’t the brightest start to a day, but it was warm enough and dry as we set out to wander off our map, having noticed the night before that the Cleveland Way looked a better way to get to Osmotherley than the route I’d plotted. Thanks went to Al for giving us brief but comprehensive directions that kept us on course!

Not far into the day Mick obliged by performing a ridiculous pose on some generously-sized stepping stones.

In Al’s directions, one of the landmarks he mentioned was ‘a horsey place’. We were relieved when we saw it, as (unusually for a National Trail) way marks had been scarce in the bit leading up to it. As we headed out the other side of the horsey place fourteen horses (which looked more like race horses than old nags, not that I’m any sort of an equestrian expert) passed us.

Al had also mentioned, in his directions, a ‘great view’ and sure enough as we approached Sutton Bank there were ‘ooohs’ uttered. It’s a fantastic escarpment, but once again you’ll have to believe me on that score (or draw on your own memory if you’ve been there) as the combined lack of quality photographic equipment, dull day and poor operator skills meant that we didn’t capture it very well. Here’s evidence that I tried:

Looking in the other direction from the same spot:

This dry-stone wall proved not to be an overly effective wind-break at lunch-time, as the wind whistled through, but I was pleased that this grouse was kind enough to pose so nicely for me.

It must have been my day for timing shots nicely, as here’s a fly-fisherman’s line in mid fling (I’m sure there must be a more technical name for that act of casting!):

The original blog post can be found here. In that post I’d put the mileage as 15 miles and said that it felt longer, but was erring on the side of it feeling longer simply because we’d faffed so much throughout the day. As it turned out when I got home and measured it, the day was over 2 miles longer than we expected. It was only when I looked at the route on a map afterwards that I recalled that the reason that I hadn’t plotted the Cleveland Way route was because the Way throws in a big southerly swing early in the day. Even so, I’m glad that we did go that way – it was an excellent walk.