A moor adventure...

Here's a story that's going to require a bit of telling and lots of photos.  Chris, John and I set off this morning from Low Mill in Farndale on the southern edge of the North York Moors to cover the ground of a walk John is leading in a couple of weeks time. Farndale is famous for its wild daffodils or 'Lenten Lillies' as they are sometimes called. It was too early for the daffodils to be blooming in this exceptionally late spring season, but hopefully they will be in full flower when the Yorkshire Ramblers return. It was a gently misty day and very boggy underfoot. All was well as we started to climb out of the dale and up onto the moorland above.

The going got steeper...

...and soon we were high on the moors, walking for quite some distance along a misty ridge. There was a strong, cold wind and the heat that had been generated on the long climb up was soon dissipated. At first the moor looks bleak and monotone, but soon you  discern a wealth of rich colours - chocolate brown - almost black, red, green a swamp warning...  We saw dozens of pheasant on the lower slopes and on the open moorland it was grouse that proliferated. The grouse were superbly camouflaged and we would never have known of their presence had they not insisted in flying up out of the heather with a persistent cry. Pheasant, partridge and grouse are all bred for shooting - a rich man's sport as John observed. Grrrrrrrrr....

We were looking for a path that would take us down off the moor and back into Farndale, though much further up the valley from where we had begun.  At this marker we turned back along the ridge because Chris and John thought we had gone too far.

Following what we thought might be the route, we soon found ourselves pathless and making our way through bracken, heather and deceptive swamp ground. The amount of moisture in the ground was remarkable. I was beginning to feel both tired and chilled. Also I had seen The Hound of the Baskervilles on television a previous evening and the scene where the villain gets sucked into moor bog was fresh in my mind!!

Eventually we stumbled rather than navigated  a way down which included negotiating old mining tailings.

We finally made it back down to the valley floor - much to my relief...

Then a long, beautiful walk back along the valley through the occasional farm and hamlet to Low Mill.

It was a superb walk through the most glorious landscape. It was also a salutary reminder that this can be unforgiving country.