Simon Howe

The first part of the walk went through a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust site called Fen Bog. With a name like that I was expecting the area to be a little moist. It wasn't bad at all, at least it wasn't along the path. The area had certainly attracted birdlife; the air was full of birdsong. In fact, I don't think I've seen as many birds on a moor as this one. My tally included: Curlew, Golden Plover, Stonechat, Meadow Pippits, Swallows and the inevitable Grouse. 

The top of Simon Howe has a Bronze Age kerb cairn and tumulus, with a stone row between them. The large cairn is a modern addition. As I walked around it taking photos, a couple of walkers arrived from the Fylingdales direction. I exchanged a brief greeting and our ideas about the weather prospects with the lead man. They didn't break step though and marched quickly straight past Simon Howe without giving the historic treasure a glance. 'When did you say the next road will be?' the one at the back asked his partner. They were obviously Lyke Wake Walkers heading west. I remember that the 'next road' or 'next stream' or the 'next change of direction' was of great significance as you made the traverse. It was a matter of splitting the mammoth task into smaller acheivable chunks. I diverted from the Lyke Wake Walk and headed along the Simon Howe stone line towards Goathand. 

Mallyan Spout

There was a thin layer of cloud that was stopping the sun shining through. By the time I was making the final drop into Goathland the cloud started burning away. I reached a road on the west side of Goathland that had a metal sign every 20 yards or so saying 'Duchy Of Lancaster No Parking.' I wasn't sure whether the Duchy had his own bye-laws in this area. And, what was his business on the wrong side of the Pennines too? I think I might go over to Lancaster and put up signs saying 'Duchy Of Nun Warthead No Parking' and see how he liked that. 

I dropped down quite steeply into the valley bottom and then followed West Beck downstream. As soon as I saw the beck I thought 'This looks like Dipper country' and sure enough, within a minute I'd seen one. The sides of the valley steepened and it became almost a ravine. The footpath was a bit rougher and muddier than I expected. They gave up on the footpath near to the Mallyan waterfall and I was left to fend for myself over the slippery boulders. There wasn't much water coming down the waterfall but it was quite a drop and still quite impressive. The route looked even worse after the waterfall and I rechecked my map to see if there really was supposed to be a footpath over the jumble of boulders. My map said there was and so I pressed on. The obstacle course of slippery boulders only lasted a minute or two and then I was back on a good footpath again. As I escaped the ravine and the trees I noticed that the light cloud had burnt away and the sun had appeared to say 'hello.'

Thomason Foss

As I dropped down some steep muddy steps to Beck Hole I met half a dozen walkers coming up. The two elderly people in front were really strugging to get up the steps. The younger couple at the back of the group asked how much further it was to the top of the steps. I told them and wondered whether I should warn them about the difficult path to the waterfall. I didn't want to be a party pooper though and so I didn't say anything. 

Beck Hole is a pretty little village positioned in the bottom of the valley. A fingerpost indicated the way for the Thomason Waterfall and so I set off on the footpath. It was another ravine route with quite an exciting path, at one moment above the ravine and the next, down by the beck. The path eventually terminated at a collection of boulders at the entrance of a rock amphitheatre. The Thomason waterfall poured into this chamber at the other end. Again, there wasn't much water coming down but it was far better than I was expecting. The footpath to Thomason Foss was an out-and-back and so I made my way back to Beck Hole.

Goathland

My route up to Goathland from Beck Hole started at the Incline Cottage. The house's name gave a fair indication of what was to come. The footpath followed an old railway line. The 1-10 to 1-12 gradient meant that a conventional railway couldn't be used. Therefore a water based gravity system was used to pull the carriages up, and ease them back down the 1.4 kilometre long slope. A 5.75 inch hemp rope was used to haul the wagons. Despite being designed by George Stephenson, it all looked a bit Heath-Robinson to me. Sure enough there was a number of accidents culminating in the death of 2 and injury of 13 when the rope broke on a carriage being lowered down the incline. In 1868 the track and winding engine were removed. 

I had my lunch sat at a picnic table in Goathland. As I was packing up I heard the haunting whistle of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway steam engine in the far distance. 'I wouldn't mind a picture of that' I thought, and started heading off to the railway station. My route took me to within a stone's throw of the centre of the village and so I thought that I'd just have time for a quick mooch around. There were plenty of walkers and motorcyclists frequenting the cafes. There were also a lot of gift shops heavily biased to memorabilia. I've never seen a Heartbeat episode, nor seen a Harry Potter film, and so I have to say that a lot of the references probably went straight over my head. I'm sure that if I'm still alive in 20 years time and return to Goathland, nothing much will have changed. The steam engine's whistle was more insistent and a lot closer now and I power walked down towards the station. I was about 50 yards from the station when the whistle went off and I watched a line of steam rise above the station roof and then above the trees down the valley. I'd missed it by seconds.

Return To Fylingdales

I headed back to Goathland and then picked up a path that was initially labelled as the 'Centenary Walk', a commemoration to 12 soldiers that died in The Great War. The route was so flat and straight that I'm sure it was a railway line at some point in its history. It was lined with trees and was wonderfully cool in what had turned out to be a pretty hot day. The Centenary Walk turned off at a campsite, but my route continued along my shaded path. It would have been great if my the path had led me straight back to the carpark, but instead it delivered me on to a road. I started following the road upwards. A few cars came along but there was a decent grassy verge on which to walk. A couple of cars had parked up along the road and their occupants were sat outside in chairs with cameras out. I then realised that the railway line ran along the valley below and they were in a good position to take a picture. Maybe I would be lucky and get a shot. 

I was back at the carpark by the time I heard that now familiar whistle again. The steam train and carriages were making their noisy way towards Pickering. I did get my photo but I was quite far away and it wasn't the best. The couple in the car parked next to me weren't in the best of moods. An icecream van was in the carpark and the woman had just bought an icecream cornet for each of them. '£6.50 for two bloody icecreams' she complained to him. He'd wrapped a tissue around the bottom of his cornet since most of the icecream had melted on to his hands. When I'd approached the carpark and seen the icecream van, I'd promised myself an icecream to complete a perfect day. But at £3.25 for a cornet! I mean they didn't even get a flake or any monkey blood. I decided that such luxuries were outside of my affordability zone for the moment. 

It had been a cracking day with an interesting mixture of moorland, ravine and trail walking. The waterfalls were more impressive than I expected and I did get to see a steam engine (okay, from quite a distance away).