Tapp's Travels

There’s so much to do around Sawdon!  We need another fortnight – at least!  We had another foray onto the Moors proper to visit Falling Foss.  This is a surprisingly impressive waterfall on the May Beck.

Conveniently adjacent, is Midge Cottage (given its location with water on three sides, I bet it’s very aptly named) and the Falling Foss cafe.

After tea and biscuits (what biscuits?), we discovered we were on the Coast-to-Coast path.  So, we had to do a section …

… well, a very small section.  About a mile out and the same back on the other bank of the Beck.  Only 181 miles more to complete the walk!

We returned home via Goathland to see the steam railway.  Sadly, we didn’t get to see the train, but hey, we see a steam train several times a day from our front window – when we ARE at home, that is!  But here’s a view of the platform and the tracks!

We visited Beverley because we had heard it was a nice market town.  Which indeed it was.

While Glenda dutifully inspected every shop on the high street, I parked outside town.  On the drive down, Glenda had reminisced about a trip to France 19 years previously.  She reminded me that we had met a couple of caravanners (Ray and Judy) at Camping Chantepie overlooking the Loire.  They used to live in Beverley but we have lost contact with them.  

I checked my old records and found a telephone number for them.  They were as surprised to have been found as I was to have found them.

Excellent cup of tea – thank you Ray and Judy!  We promised not to wait another 19 years before making contact again!  We agreed that would definitely be pushing our luck!

Well, it’s time to move on (and I’ve already written about this and lost a section – WordPress isn’t infallible on the saving of versions front!).  Wiske Moor is only about 50 miles away but the main road goes via Sutton Bank.   This is a short but steep, winding descent.  (A short but steep, winding ascent going the other way!).  Notices on the roadside tell us that in the last year the Bank has been closed on 74 separate occasions as a result of HGVs coming to grief on the hill.  In a rather disconnected sort of way, caravans are therefore banned from using this stretch of road – in either direction.

So, after passing Helmsley, we are diverted through the small villages of Ampleforth and Coxwold (I bet the residents love this!) as we wend our way through narrow country roads with sections as steep as any on the main road!  But rules is rules!  And this way we did manage a beer and sandwich at the Fauconberg Arms in Coxwold!

On the subject of steep roads… Wales and New Zealand have, apparently, been locked in battle over claims of possessing the world’s “steepest road”!  While Wales had long maintained it was the winner, a Kiwi town called Baldwin now holds the record when measured along the centre line (which is where it now has to be measured).  The record stands at an impressive 34.8%.

(Clearly not my photograph!)

However, while meandering in the country roads inland from Ravenscar we saw a sign saying 35% gradient ahead!  It was certainly extraordinarily vertiginous!  In comparison, Sutton Bank has three short sections which reach a minimalistic 25%!  Just saying!

At Wiske Moor we pitched in our favourite corner and the awning was up immediately – not like Spain where it never came out of the car in eight weeks!

We stay at Danby Wiske to see Sarah and Ian (university friends).

One day we walked along the Cow Beck Reservoir …

… which just happens to be on the Coast to Coast path and had lunch at the Golden Lion in Osmotherly.   Also slap bang on the C2C which also passes Sarah and Ian’s front door!

I think, after four sections covered (plus our visit to Robin Hood’s Bay, where the walk ends), we are due to get the badge and certificate!

A little further north from Osmotherly,  we visited the Mount Grace Priory.  Basically a ruin of it’s former self, it was once a flourishing Carthusian priory.  A walled enclosure enclosing ruins of a church and 25 isolated dwellings.

“What are Carthusians?”,  I asked Mr Wikipedia.  This is his reply:

“The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians, are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own rules, called the Statute, and their life combines both eremitical and cenobitic monasticism.”

The trouble with asking such a question is that it raises more questions than it answers!  However, the place was home to 25 monks.  Each had his own five room, two floor apartment with walled garden.

Water was ducted into each dwelling from hillside springs …

… and food was delivered twice a day by a nun called Delilah Veroo via a niche in the monks’ Wall.  These delivery ports had a right angle bend so there was no visual contact between Delilah and the monks.  The monks were required to pray in their cells seven times a day for one to two hours a time.  Spare time was spent gardening and doing other constructive stuff like spinning and weaving.  Delilah, known to the monks as “Deli”, is now the patron Saint of food delivery companies!

… And that’s a good spot to pause while you think about her name!