Unlucky number 13. In some ways, I could say day 13 lived true to its superstition. In other ways, I could argue that this was the only way to truly experience the moors of northern England.
After a breakfast of schnitzel and spaetzle (yes, we asked him to make us schnitzel and spaetzle for breakfast! and yes, he happily obliged us!), the innkeeper drove us back up to the trail, with his two Giant Schnauzers in the back. When we got out of the truck, the wind was whipping and the rain steadily misted.
After a short traverse through low-lying flora, the path takes a sudden and sharp incline up. We practically crawled up the mountain front, not because the path was necessarily difficult but because of the wind. The wind was consistently blowing at 25 mph with sudden gusts over 40 mph. The incline was so sharp that I kept picturing the wind shoving me back down the mountain. As my husband said, there’s no trees on the moor for a reason.
When we reached the top, we had the relief of not plummeting down the mountain face, but we also had no protection from constantly being bombarded with strong gusts. The path widened and the Urra Moors spread before us and far to either side.
When I was little, I read The Secret Garden, but I had no sense of what a moor was (I lived in southern England near Southampton). Just for fun, I reread it a few months ago, and when it described the moors, the picture was perfectly clear in my mind. Rough, brutal lands. Savage lands.
Now listen, I have no doubt the moors can be lovely at times. I’ve seen photos of the heather in full bloom, intense purples as far as the eyes can see. Well, we were walking through the moors in October. The season of beauty was long over and autumn brought on a brutal landscape that pelted us constantly with gusts and rain and cold.
We had been following the Cleveland Way through most of the moors, but it bore sharply to the left while the C2C path stayed straight. On either side of the path, the land dropped steeply down. I told Ron that if I fall and die, I will forever roam the moors… “The mooooorsss… the moooooorrsss!” Again, images from the Bronte sisters sprang to mind, creating a sense of haunting and foreboding.
In the image of riding out of the past, an older chap wearing a newsboy cap on a bicycle that looked like it was from 1930 came toddering by us. Good grief. We were in pain from the brutality of the environment, and this born and bred Yorksman didn’t blink twice at the fierceness of his environment.
At this point, we needed some distraction. I belted out “BICYCLE! BICYCLE! I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it now!” It clicked. We started thinking of songs that depicted our environment in metaphor:
“I believe I can flllyy! I believe I can touch the sky!”
“Youuuu are the wind beneath my wings!”
“All we are is dust in the wind!”
“Against the wind! We were running (limping) against the wind!”
“They call the wind Maria! Maria! Maria!”
Finding as many songs as we could to describe the merciless environment helped so much! I know it sounds like I’m complaining about the ruthlessness of the moors, and I can honestly say I have no interest in walking them again, but we actually had a lot of fun on day 13. As I said, this seemed such a fitting way to experience the world depicted in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
And I say I have no interest in walking the moors again, not because the couple of days were so brutal, but because the nature just did nothing for me. Granted, when the heather is in full bloom, I can see a nice sunny day being a pleasant stroll. But generally, after coming from the Lake District and the Dales, the Moors had nothing on them in our books.
As we walked, a vehicle that looked like it could be army passed us. Far in the distance, we saw a number of vehicles hiding behind the fog. As we approached, we saw 10+ vehicles with men and women milling about. A gent from the first vehicle we passed got out and handed us both chocolates. Coming down off the mountains was a large group of gamekeepers. It appeared that locals and gamekeepers were working hand in glove to hunt grouse.
An almost indistinct path cut off to the left. As we came up to the road, we could vaguely make out a building across the road. But the inn we were trying to find, that showed it should be right there on the map, was invisible. In either direction, the fog was so thick, you could only see a short ways in front of you. Sheep had entered the road and we cringe to think of drivers barreling down the road.
As we walked, we could just barely make out the chimneys on the roof of the inn, as it slowly presented itself. Going inside, we were grateful for a roaring fire and a pint of lager.
The bad luck of the day? You thought it was the weather, yeah? As I said, that’s what made the hike that day fun, in a cruel and twisted way! No, the bad luck was that by the time we reached the inn, my throat was sore. By the time we went to bed that night, it had already turned into a cough. And by the next morning, I was well on my way to having bronchitis. Our final stop that day was in Grosmont, but as I was starting to get sick, we cheated and called a taxi to bring us the remainder of the way.
The last day was before us. We felt sad, in some ways, that we would have to go back to civilization after hiking in the backcountry of England for two weeks. In other ways, we were excited to let our bodies finally heal and to dip our toes in the North Sea. We had almost made it from one sea to another.
Missed any days? Check out my Coast to Coast blog for the rest of our two week adventure across England.
