Well, we've been up hill and down dale literally. We've been three days in the Yorkshire Dales and now we're in the Yorkshire Moors. We've bounced and rattled through all sorts of terrain, enjoying all kinds of weather and putting our camper firmly to the test. And today was a big test!
I like to think I'm a pretty decent navigator. I have good sense of direction certainly, though I do have some difficulty reading our road map, even with my reading glasses (don't talk to me about Sat Navs!) Yes, I had seen a note on our camping club map about something called Sutton Banks and as we headed for the moors after some shopping in Thirsk we also saw ‘No caravans this way’ signs along the road we were taking. Intrigued, and confident that we aren't exactly a caravan, we trundled along passing each and every warning sign. I was bemused by the last sign which suggested doom and then, there it was! The land reared up suddenly before us and a 25% hairpin climb took us completely by surprise. It was scary! Gareth paled and the van laboured up the slope as he changed down into lowest gear. With each bend and each flashing ‘25% climb’ warning of disaster I didn't dare look backwards and down to where the road we had come along so blithely met the bottom of the cliff. Thankfully we did reach the top and we could breathe again. We pulled into a National Park car park and put the kettle on. All of our pots, pans and fridge contents had remained safely in place and we could be happy that our recent haul from Lidl hadn't ended up in a messy pile at the bottom of Sutton Banks. Phew!
It wasn't the only scare today, though, and we learnt another lesson. I'm up at night writing this because I can't sleep for thinking about it. Sutton Banks being a spectacular landscape feature we thought we should take a look and give the dogs a run at the same time. A properly accessible footpath struck out along the Cleveland Way and we wellied our way along it, dogs gaily springing and muddying themselves. A few days ago Gareth had remonstrated with me for letting the dogs loose in unknown territory and for narrowly avoiding a trip to the vet after having to extricate Bess from a barbed wire fence. Today we lost Pwdin. Gareth whistled and whistled, whistled, called and whistled. I panicked, having seen that the wooded edge to the pathway hid a sheer drop. I had been nervous about it but Gareth had been happy for the dogs to scurry around in the undergrowth doing what spaniels do and now there was no sign of her. Pwdin doesn't bark either, and we knew that if she was in trouble we wouldn't find her by listening out for her. Bless her, she eventually, after what felt like ages, reappeared out of the shrubbery on the steep side, out of breath but seemingly unharmed. It's at times like that you wish your pets can talk. We'll never know what the episode was from her perspective.
That wasn't all, either. Shaken, but relieved (and Gareth shamefaced that he'd been so careless with the dogs), we headed back to the van. A suitable puddle in which to swill off my muddy boots proved to be water over a slab of ice down onto which I inevitably fell and on which I then slithered around like a jellied eel (do they slither?) trying to get up again. I've never felt so much like an old lady as I wriggled about and had to be helped up by another tourist (yes, Gareth came to my rescue too, when he saw what was happening, though he did ask the stupidest question - “What on earth are you doing?”).
So that was our ungainly introduction to the Yorkshire Moors. Southerners that we are, we've been unprepared for February weather in The North. Gareth almost got frostbite one day taking photos at a high point between Paterly and Grassington. The place is called Coldstones, and we found out why! The view was terrific though.
Anyway, we are parked up for the night in a beautiful Yorkshire town called Helmsley. A couple of bottles of Rioja relieved the shock and indignity of my fall, though the bruises are starting, now, to hurt. Poor Pwdin hasn't had any Rioja to help her over her shock. She’s been much more subdued tonight. I wonder if in her sleep she's reliving her close encounter with death.
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