Day 20 - Ingleby Cross to Clay Bank Top

Distance Walked: 20.2km, Time Taken: 7h 20m, # Beers: 1/2 pint Iron Cross

Today we started our climb up onto the North York Moors.  Our route followed the northern edge of the moors, so you had fabulous views over the moors to your right and impressive views down a steep drop into the valley below on your left.  We also got our first glimpse of the North Sea which is our destination.  The end is in sight!

 

We'd gotten cocky with the ease of the last two days of walking.  While we knew intellectually there would be climbing today, we didn't fully appreciate quite how much.  Instead, we spent the trip from our previous night's hotel back to the trail debating the relative value of different types of crisps.  Every packed lunch includes one.  We were trying to decide how much more valuable a packet of salt & vinegar crisps were compared to just plained salted ones and where cheese & onion rated on the scale.  More to the point, how many crisp "points" would be needed to ensure that Richie, the Badger Van man, would make sure we got a room with a bathtub rather than just a shower at our next hotel.  What naive fools we were.

I have no excuse for failing to realise how much effort would be required today.  I actually walked this section of trail back in 2022, as the C2C overlaps with the Cleveland Way today.  I only thought to re-read my diary for that day this evening.   I see I noted that up on the moors it is windy with a capital W.  If anything, I was understating the case.  The day started off plesantly enough.  It was overcast but not too cold and very little breeze.  Up on the moors it was a howling gale and quite cold.  Below is a picture of us all enjoying ourselves at the top of the 2nd highest peak of the day.   

We have decided that while the day started off as Type 1 fun, it had degenerated into Type 2 fun by this point.  Type 1 fun is when you are enjoying yourself at the time.  Type 2 is when it isn't fun at the time but you have a marvellous sense of achievement when you finish (and get somewhere warm and dry).  Tomorrow is due to be as windy, if not more so, and possibly raining in the afternoon.  We expect it to be Type 2 fun all day.

We are actually staying in the same hotel as I did back in 2022,  the Wainstones Hotel.   It is as comfortable as I remembered and we all got rooms with a bathtub.  We needn't have resorted to bribery and corruption!

Dinner was a disappointment.  It is Sunday so we'd all ordered different Sunday roasts.  I'd ordered the lamb, as had several others in our group.  Unfortunately, by the time it came to serving our group they'd run out of lamb.  I settled for the pork while most opted for the beef.  Robin scorned her Yorkshire pudding and refused to eat it.  We weren't ordered to leave but it could have been dicey.   However, several of us ordered the treacle tart with custard for dessert only to be told they were out of custard.  I wonder if that was the chef's revenge on our group for not appreciating his Yorkshire puddings appropriately?