Just Esk and we'll follow

All three of us are venturing out again on the Coast to Coast meets Walking with Uncles odyssey and it's the penultimate day of our 17. As we pass the Church of the English Martyrs, Paddy remarks, 'I'm now beginning to regard myself as one of them.' Of course, he's not, he's doing really well, particularly with the muesli and fresh fruit regime I've got him on every morning. Just look at the muscles coming on in those legs.

Our route today follows the Esk and it's a lush and leafy contrast to the moorland of the past few days. We follow a centuries-old 'paved pannier' trail, created specifically for packhorses and their muleteers. The stones are worn down with hundreds of years of tramping.

It brings us out at Egton Bridge, the village the Reformation missed, and the birthplace of the Blessed Nicholas Postgate. He was a 17th century Catholic priest who carried on Masses and religious rites in secret, on the moors, and who was eventually betrayed and executed, aged 82. There are relics in the church here and this wonderful window, too.

The route takes in lots of points of social and historical interest, from an old Toll House by the Esk, to this donkey sanctuary with a donation box on the gate. 'If my friend Hilary were here she'd put a fiver in that box,' I say.

In Grosmont we find steam trains, a toytown-style station and trainspotters galore. We have a momentary lapse in the world of simple sedentary pleasures at the Old School cafe – lemon drizzle cake, lattes and views of the North York Moors Railway's steam trains chugging by.

It's just as well, for the next leg is the Coast to Coast's 'ultimate' hill (yesterday we had its penultimate), and it's a tough trek up an endless 33 degree tarmac road. I pass the time by checking emails on my phone.

Then it's over the final moor for me and the Bog Cotton Boys, along a busy road with views of Whitby Abbey (just above the car in the picture below) and we arrive in Littlebeck, typical of the villages in the valleys here. 

But no pub, sadly, so we say cheerio to Hauke and head back to Whitby. I think it'll be an Italian tonight. We need plenty of ballast for the final day.