The rail thing

So we leave the mill hostel in Osmotherley and head over to where we left off yesterday. 

It's just me and Pad today. Mick is resting his leg, which took a beating yesterday, not to mention the rest of his body. We have to drop my car off at the end and it's a tortuous journey, along tiny country lanes with completely inadequate signposting. With two passengers certain about their own navigational skills, poor Paddy in the driving seat is caught between a rock and a hard place. We don't set off until 10.30am and first up is a steep climb to the top of a hill. Pad does well, and we get to the top in half an hour, where Hauke is dawdling about taking notes and pictures and sort of waiting for us. 

I'd find it tough, doing all these walks alone, as Hauke does, chatting to people briefly, who then move on because you've stopped to take notes or coordinates. Whereas we always seem to be glad of a little rest, or elevenses, and so our paces dovetail perfectly. As does our humour. Pad decides to put away his poles, because, 'I won't be needing them any more.' 'Do you want to jog on, then?' teases Hauke.

We come to a stone with a carved message underneath a pointing hand. Pad thinks it's something to do with Jesus. 'No, you've got a one-track mind,' says Hauke. 'It means this way to....' Hard to believe he's not Irish.

There's another stone with a carved face. I can't resist mimicking the expression but I don't quite pull it off.

Pad has brought along The Medieval Messenger, a book he found on one of his abbey visits. We all get the giggles as he reads aloud the lonely hearts ads. 

And so it goes, we join a track created from a disused railway that originally transported iron from these moors to Teeside. We spend an hour talking about etymology, including derivations of the word cleft and their various meanings – cleave, cloven etc. Later Pad muses, 'I wonder why a clove is called a clove.' 'Let it go,' says Hauke.

We find another idyllic lunch spot, though we've been warned of adders and ticks around these parts. But the only animals we see are the ubiquitous sheep, up here sounding quite strangulated with their baahs, and happy grouse who have escaped murder on the moors (dozens of grouse butts up here). Their cry reminds me of a child's wind-up toy. Or an Aussie saying G'day G'day G'day.

There are more beautiful windows onto the lush valleys below, but this time we're deeper into the moor so the belt of purple heather is that much thicker.

These boxes of pellets have us wondering. If one side is normal food, what do [the sheep] get on the other? The day's special, perhaps, or cake when it's their birthday? 

At one point we meet a large group of students with a couple of older leaders. Duke of Edinburgh goings on, I reckon. There's one boy and girl dawdling at the back, holding hands. A D-of-E romance.

After walking miles along the railway track the end, the Lion Inn, is finally in sight. 

Time for one last photo of Pad looking like David Attenborough ready to take on his next gorilla.

We drive to Whitby and can't believe our eyes when we get to the hostel. It's right next to Whitby Abbey. In fact, the hostel building was originally the Abbey guesthouse. My room is top left, sharing with a couple of Spanish girls and a mum and her young daughters. 

View from the room over Whitby. 

We do a whistlestop tour (free to hostel residents)...

...then have drinks by the hostel's conservatory with the Abbey in the background. The hostel's perimeter wall has bits of Abbey wedged in between the stones. This is the life.