Cleveland Way -Ravenscar to Scarborough

It’s been sometime since I blogged about walking a ‘Way’, and mainly due to ‘this and that’ and I haven’t been bothered, the literary juices haven’t been flowing like they should. After I managed to scrape together Sheffield Pike blog out I’ve decided to give our next leg of the Cleveland Way a bash and see how it flows.

It seems like ages since we started our quest at Helmsley, well it is really, but I feel the miles have been many but the end is in sight. Not as though I want it to end but the feeling of ending a ‘Way’ is quite fulfilling and the planning of another route is just as exciting as completing.

As usual a quick game of musical cars starts a linear route with Dicko and Sue leading the way to Scarborough and the search for a car parking space on a Bank holiday Monday. Luckily we found a recently vacated spot near the North Bay and we all piled into Dicko’s mean machine with all our kit and dog. A small fortune in parking fees later and we were on route back to Ravenscar to pick up the end of the last leg of the Cleveland Way.

The Bank Holiday traffic was in full swing and the East coast of Yorkshire (is there another coast of Yorkshire??) was buzzing with holiday makers and games arcade seekers but we managed to find a space at OL27 981015 opposite the public toilets on the main road to Raven Hall Hotel. Boots on, daysack checked and we were off. Testing my body cam for the second time, this time tightly strapped to my shoulder strap and turned on. The first few hundred metres were the usual genres of banter. Sue complaining about why she has to carry a daysack and Kel doesn’t (Kel had put all her food and waterproofs into mine before we set off) and Kel and Sue discussing the usual earth shattering stuff.

We took a quick right onto Station Rd then an even quicker left toward the beach banks and a view of the North Sea. The path went right onto the beach banks and the start of our rollercoaster route to Scarborough. These coastal walks are a real treat when the weathers clear, which is was today, looking at the map it’s easy to work the twists and turns out and you can see your goal getting closer. What you can’t see are the drops in the path when a Bay cuts into the route, these I have named as ‘Sue Moaners’! Reason being is you can’t see these little gems until you’re right on top of them if you’ve not got a map, which invariably Sue never does. Dicko’s chief map reader followed closely by me, and then Kel who only uses a map to plan routes, and when I say ‘plan’, I mean find as many contour lines closest together for a route up as she can, I think she just likes the colour orange!

I digress slightly, the cut in the coastline that ‘bays’ make is sometimes quite a decent drop then climb on a normally level route. My choice of nickname for them is because on sight of these features, Sue’s face drops, she stops walking, puts her hands on her hips and says “Oh no!” (Or words to that affect). Dicko then gets a glare as though he’d driven to Yorkshire in the night and dug the bay out himself just to miff Sue off!

But for now we were going at a good pace, the view was great and the jelly babies were on tap from Sue’s heavily laden daysack, did I say laden?, I meant “I’ve had heavier pockets”. The beach offered geographical changes at every turn and, sad as I may sound the sight of the fisherman pulling their lobster pots on board showed me a calmer, more relaxed way of life that is a different world to me. Blea Wyke went by and War Dyke keeping the path nice and level and smiles all round. In fact all was good and we decided to have bait at Hayburn Wyke, the Trust guys had done a great job putting steps down into the nature reserve, handle rails the works! At the bottom of the steps was a great view out to sea and a cracking couple of rocks to perch and eat.

Bait stops are always a time for reflection on the route so far, expectations of the route ahead and a chance for Alfie to weigh up what sandwiches are on offer and to totally ignore the boiled egg Kel brings him…… everytime!

Faces filled and a tantrum from Sue about the short sharp ascent back up onto the beach banks and we were on our way up through the smell of wild garlic and a few smiley bank holiday faces that must have made the trek from Scarborough. Back on the level ground (ish) passed Rodger Trod and another ‘Sue Moaner’ at Salt Pans and a nice view of Cloughton Wyke. Scarborough was in view now and I could taste the post walk pint of cider. The little hut at Long Nab gave us a short view break and a read of the sign relating to the hut. As we left Crook Ness I had a reminder of home, when I say home, I mean my adopted home in east Durham. I don’t want to destroy anyone’s image of this part of the walk but I guess it’s a part of countryside life now meeting a Lurcher closely followed by two traveller ‘wannabes’ looking for an unsuspecting rabbit on the beach banks, and a wake of cannabis fumes as they walked passed with a friendly greeting.

We headed towards Sailors Grave with the sound of the pair with the Lurcher in the background and a view of Scalby Mills and a smack in the mouth with a reality wet fish of brown brick new builds overlooking the North Sea. On the shore were towels and Lilos and the smell of Skunk was replaced by the sewer at Scalby Ness Sands. The volume of tourists increased ten-fold as we walked over Long Nab (2) onto the promenade and colourful beach huts of North Bay Scarborough and Bank Holiday tourists.

A short walk through the holiday hustle and bustle to the car park brought back distant memories of scooter rallies in the 80’s and the welcome sight of my Aygo.

It had been a great day, great walk and yet again great company. Closing in on the end and another ‘Way’ almost complete. Feeling loads better!

100th Wainwright just had to be Sheffield Pike!

I realise there are 214 Wainwrights so you’d probably argue that fell 107 is a milestone, being halfway, when we reached 99 on Raven Crag we, sorry I, wanted to make the 100^th be something special. Being from God’s county I picked Sheffield Pike!

A sunny but chilly day met us as we left the caravan site followed by family Dicko and headed for Ullswater and the road down the west side of the massive water that seems to take forever to drive down to Glenridding. The A592 offers twists and surprises at every turn on a sunny day, trying to find a space in the small free car parks that litter the road is an adventure in itself. We eventually settled for a small ‘pull in’ just prior to Glencoyne and met the Dicko’s at the NT car park to start our walk.

As always on meeting our favourite hiking buddies, Kel and Sue check out new kit and colour match and me and Dicko just take the mick. I was sporting my new body cam as I got for a birthday present with which I was experimenting videoing our walks. Sue’s first reaction was to ask if it records audio, I said no but I was lying, she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s a potty mouth. We set off up the straight track to the cluster of buildings which I guess is Glencoyne, the site of Sheffield Pike standing in front of us asking to be climbed. The path goes through the back garden of the buildings which always seems a bit weird to me, tramping through someone’s back garden. Through the very small wooden gate and eventually placed boot of grassy fell as we started the climb up the sheep infested hillside to a quaintly placed terrace of cottages which, looking at the map, is called Seldom Seen. The grass bank up to the stone wall and a gate through gave everyone a welcome early break to vent or remove clothing that was causing an early sweat.

Richard (Dicko’s son) was off up front hop, skiping and jumping his way through the heather and rocks while we straggled behind giving Alfie (our Springer) his excuse to do his hill reps between us and him. I was feeling it, even at this early stage, the medication I was on takes its toll in all shapes and form and early fatigue was one. The climb wasn’t particularly hard but getting to Bleabank side seemed like Everest to me and the sight of Nick Head and the designated sweet stop was more than welcome. I joined the group and plonked myself on a Peat shelf and tucked into Dicko’s jelly babies, my body craved sugar. Alfie was on a peat soaked water fest and doing ’doughnuts’ in the sodden ground was an ideal way of covering everyone in black water. Thanks mate!

We rested and contemplated the summit which wasn’t too far away, approx. 75 metre climb to the 675m summit. Halfway to the top I saw group resting with a few kids running about while the adults rested. As we got closer I recognised my work mate Louise tending a small child and then remembered she was in the area with her family and had obviously also chosen Sheffield Pike as their ‘summit of the day’. We had a bit of craic and arranged to meet at the ‘Rambler’s Bar’ later for a post walk pint. We headed east towards the summit and at last about 500m of level (ish) ground reached the summit fairly quickly and with a cracking view. Ullswater was as clear as a bell and we even got a view of people skiing down Raise. Helvellyn looked amazing, the snow had given it a wonderful coat that had a good few people climbing to the top.

At this point I’d given up on my cam, I hadn’t attached it correctly to my day sack and it kept slipping forward and all I had was cracking footage of the ground and my size 11’s. We headed south east towards Heron Pike struggling to find a definite path. We stopped at the iron post as the ‘path’ had come to drop, a 50m drop! Luckily we could see Louise and the rest of her party nearly at the bottom heading towards the stone wall. Her hubby pointed to our left, I thought it was an indication to the path we needed to take so we headed left and found a small well-trodden area of grass heading down hill towards the wall. It seemed to take an age to get to the wall and ‘The hills were alive, with the sound of Sue screams!’ There were a few scares on the slippery grass, even I had a few ‘Hip jolters!’

Eventually we met the dry stone wall heading north to south and walked in the direction of the ‘Rake’ and crossed the junction with the wall dropping off Glenridding Dodd. We did plan to top Glenridding Dodd but I felt very tired and had slight chest pains, again a result of the medication floating around my body.

I told Kel I didn’t want to go any higher so we decided to take a left then left again to briefly head north east to Mossdale Beck and follow the beck down to the road. If you chose this path be wary that it’s not very well maintained, we had to run the gauntlet of falling trees and collapsed paths. Which meant us getting ‘hands on’ in some parts, which I don’t mind but Sue didn’t look too impressed. Finally we hit the road and a short walk back up to the parking spot just passed Glencoyne Bridge.

We met Louise and her family at the Ramblers Bar for a well-deserved pint of cider and a chat in the sun. A great peak for our 100^th Wainwright and a lovely sunny day to do it!