Thursday 28th September 2000
( weather: fine & sunny after 2 days of rain )
Today's walk: Sutton Bank - Gormire Lake - Kilburn White Horse - Roulston Scar
( 7 Miles )
I'll only give a brief guide to today's walk - a detailed description would take a couple of pages!
The walk is very
pleasant, spectacular in places, but I recommend you only do it
on a fine day,
after a long, dry spell of weather !
Today, after a couple of days of rain, we got very muddy feet !
Today's walk starts
at the North York Moors National Park Information Centre at
Sutton Bank ( Grid ref: 515 831 )
where there is ample car parking space - the Centre alone is well
worth a visit
A short walk west
from the Information Centre brings us to the Cleveland Way trail
where we turn right
and follow the path towards Whitestone Cliff - below us we get a
good view of Gormire Lake and across
the Vale of Mowbray to the distant Pennines just visible in the
haze
The precipice of
Whitestone Cliff is sheer and unguarded and the Cleveland Way
path follows very
close to the edge - great care must be taken at this stage of the
walk
From Whitestone Cliff we get another good view down to Gormire Lake
Not far past
Whitestone Cliff we turn left at a bridleway sign and follow the
track steeply down a gully through woodland
- after the recent rain we'd had, this path was extremely muddy,
slippery and very difficult to negotiate
Ignoring the stile into Garbutt Wood (above right) we soon meet a better path and turn left, passing a signpost for Gormire
Shortly afterwards we get our first sight of Gormire Lake through the early autumn leaves
The path continues along the western edge of the lake where we still enjoy glimpses through the trees . . .
. . . before enjoying this lovely view across the reeds and bulrushes from the southern shore
Following the path around the southern shore affords us good views across the lake back up to Whitestone Cliff
From this point the
directions of the walk become complicated. I've never been in the
jungle
but the next half mile or so, through thick undergrowth and deep
ferns, must be the nearest I've ever come!
Eventually we emerge, tired and mud spattered . . .
. . . beside open green pastures where the sheep willingly pose for today's photo shoot
Now this is my idea of a picturesque walk - here we follow the farm track with Roulston Scar in the distance
From just a bit further on we look back towards Whitestone Cliff and again beyond an excellent example of a ladder stile
From High Cleaves
Farm we've followed the farm track to the busy A170 and, after
carefully crossing the road,
we go along the access road to Hood Grange Farm before following
the footpath signposted for Hood Hill
Here we look back to Hood Grange Farm before joining the forestry track into Hood Hill Plantation . . .
. . . which we follow straight on for the next mile or so . . .
. . . enjoying the occasional superb view of Roulston Scar high up to our left
( our only problem is we've got to get up there yet! )
The forest track
eventually exits onto the steep minor road from Kilburn where we
turn left
and climb steeply uphill before reaching . . .
. . . the public car park just below the White Horse of Kilburn
Unfortunately, from this viewpoint we can't see the 'horse's head' but . . .
. . . after a steep climb up the steps to the top we can enjoy the view south across the Vale of York
( The clump of grass in the foreground is, in fact, the 'eye' of the 'horse's head' )
From the top of Roulston Scar we can look back down to the route of part of our walk ( Hood Grange Farm centre )
As we follow the path from the White Horse we pass the Gliding Club to our right before . . .
. . . enjoying our final views of Gormire Lake to the north . . .
. . . and looking back south to Roulston Scar
........
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