Boot and Sandal on the Moor

30 Jun Boot and Sandal on the Moor

A week ago I was puffing my way up Grosmont Hill, the sting in the tail of the Coast to Coast walk, a mile and a half stretch of road, much of it 1 in 3 gradient, that lifts you out of the lovely valley of the River Esk, away from the village of Grosmont where the little steam train does its own puffing as it pauses between journeys to and from Pickering with its load of steam enthusiasts, up onto yet another of Yorkshire’s sublime moors. Two more moors until you reach the east coast. 

Several moors were already under our belts – or should that be boots? On Midsummer’s Day we walked across Urra Moor and Blakey Moor. The mercury crept into double figures but the NE wind pegged it back. Mist hung low as we set out. Then rain. It was Day 14 of our walk. 170 miles done; about 30 to go. I’d been walking with a boot on the left foot and a sandal on the right for several days.  A tiny blister appeared on the inside of my right heel at the halfway point of the walk; by Day 10 it had grown from an insignificant half centimetre to an imposing couple of inches of puffed-up anger masquerading as flesh. I have a picture but good taste prevents me from posting it here. Change the footwear or give up the walk was the only choice. Luckily, Richmond is one of the few places on the trail with shops and the last pair of Size 5 cheap walking sandals from Mountain Warehouse saved my trip. 

So it was, with one boot and one foot encased in a carrier bag inside the sandal to keep the worst of the wet out, that I climbed onto Urra. What a name: Urra Moor. Earthy, primitive, rolls wonderfully off the tongue.There was another time we crossed this moor on a day when we could see only a few yards in front of us so it seemed like a closed world. On a fine day this moor rivals any you could ever see, its gently intersecting contours disappearing into the far distance and the sky. There are no trees and almost no evidence of man save for the path beneath your feet and the occasional old stone boundary post. These spare coordinates are not enough to give you a sense of scale and perspective. You could be lost up there. 

The day before, sun and cloud had danced together over other moors – Live Moor, Carlton Moor, Cringle Moor. North Yorkshire’s moors are one of its glories. A feast of heather, bracken and stone, a soundscape of lapwing, curlew and lambs bleating for their mothers. Even with low mist and a chill breeze, the moors give you something with their desolate beauty and their expansiveness. 

Back to the top of Grosmont Hill. I’m there, puffing, pausing for a rest and eyeing Sleights Moor that stretches flat across my path. Phew – at least it’s flat! Sandy and peaty soils mingle hosting patches of cotton grass like tiny beards on twigs and coarse little shrubs tucked in among the heather that’s waiting for late summer when it will burst into flower to craft a shroud of deep purple the colour of a fine regal cloak. In the middle distance the outline of Whitby Abbey, its ruins dark against the horizon of sky and sea. Yes, the sea. Finally, the sea. Across the moor you drop down to Little Beck and enter a magical woodland along the slope of the beck where ferns grow tall as garden sheds and sunlight plays through the trees. Soft, sheltered, tranquil after the harsher, exposed terrain of the moor, yet a wood that must yield stories of gentle or gruesome giants, fearsome trolls, mischievous sprites and blithe fairies. It’s like walking through an alternative universe.

Then the last moor, Sneaton Low Moor, an undulating, usually boggy affair that this year is dry as a bone. Pockets of gorse vie with heather and bracken. A couple of lonely sheep watch us from a distance looking ancient and unkempt, their fleeces partially moulted as if the shearer had lost concentration. Everywhere and constantly the sound of birds nesting on the ground. You rarely see them in this environment; they must be well-camouflaged or maybe just secretive. But they sing and chirrup all day long.

Back in London. Back home and the landscape and soundscape are transformed. And time has played a trick. The walk up Grosmont Hill has receded into a more distant past, the kind of past you sometimes have to ask yourself: ‘Did that really happen?’. An aeon of time rather than just a week has slipped by as the rituals, routines and preoccupations of life reassert themselves, the familiar takes hold again. I guess this is why we survive so well as a species, this adaptability, this moving between modes of existence with the ease of changing gears in a well-oiled car. Yet I want to hold onto the journey, the highs and lows, the exhausting climbs and the knee-aching descents, the other nutters we met on the trail doing the same journey – again. But especially the moors. The hills, dales, tarns, rivers and meadows are something, but the moors are something else. They are set deep in my cultural heritage, maybe in my DNA, a piece of my past and my present, part of my sense of being home.