Day 11 - Ingleby Cross to Clay Bank Top - 11 miles

A Walking Woman's Nightcap - Ibuprophen with red wine chaser

Calves of Cement

This is how we ended our long, long day from Richmond yesterday. We were in bed before 9pm and asleep in about no seconds flat. We had a good breakfast and then hit the road with a lot of moaning and groaning. Our feet did not do well yesterday what with blisters, blood blisters and heat rash. So it was with some reluctance that we left Park House Farm, first we went the wrong way for a while but sorted ourselves out and made our way up and up the path into Arncliffe Woods.

In the company of grouse

Arncliffe Woods




I found the walk up excruciating as my calf muscles just won't seem to let go for the first  hour or so of walking but we made it to the top and the view was well worthwhile, looking back the way we'd come yesterday.

View from top of Arncliffe Woods

At the top we joined the Cleveland Way, along which we walk all day today and the Lyke Wake Walk. The Cleveland Way is a 110 miles path between Helmsley and Filey and the LWW is a 40 mile walk across the moors from Scarth Wood Moor to Ravenscar to be completed within 24 hours

Cleveland Way Sign

On Scarth Wood Moor we found Brickhenge, the little known relative of Stonehenge


We walk on to Scarth Nick, then start to go down again, skirting a magical bit of woodland.

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Clain Wood


So we've descended into a valley only to start climbing again up a long, winding stony staircase onto Live Moor.

Linda half dead on Live Moor

The path is clear and wide with little chance of getting lost. The Cleveland Way is a very well used route and we see lots of walkers.

Ahead the summit of Carlton Moor


It's a wonderful walk along the edge of the escarpment looking down to the little villages a long way down. We're not going very fast as our legs are feeling really heavy today so we just enjoy the fabulous views and look forward to the cake and cold drinks we've promised ourselves at the cafe located down in the next valley. It's a long steep climb down but worth it. Lordstones Cafe is a going concern, here in the middle of nowhere, open 364 days of the year.

Flowers at Lordstones

Jen anxious to get to her cake

It would have been nice to sit there all day but there were still more hills to be climbed. So, full of cake and ginger beer we made our way up the winding path to Cringle Moor. There's a lovely stone seat there (some bugger was sitting on it!) and a plaque to the Alec Falconer, the man who invented The Cleveland Way and sadly died before it was opened.

It was a really thrilling walk along the edge of the escarpment with views of all the little villages far below. Then we plunge downhill again only to see far above our final climb of the day, up to the Wainstones.

Jen on path to the Wainstones

 

When we finally reach the stones we have to negotiate our way through them and it's a bit of a climb and scramble. We later found out there's an easy route to take. Of course there is. 

We'd been instructed to phone Wolfgang, the owner of The Buck Inn, on arrival at the Wainstones so  he could collect us, which we did and 20 minutes later after a flat stretch of Hasty Bank we made our final steep drop down to the road and drove off to Chop Gate, our home for the night.