Gisborough Moor

6 May 2007

Our final walk of the weekend in Yorkshire was to the third Marilyn of the North York Moors, Gisborough Moor, which appears to be so spelt despite being just above Guisborough.

Walking onto Gisborough Moor from near Commondale

The public footpath across Gisborough Moor. It sometimes ran within a couple of metres of the vehicle tracks, but with estate managers driving about in Land Rovers and repeated warnings about dogs being banned, we stuck to the public highway.

George investigates a rather odd shack.

A war memorial sits in the middle of the path, apparently in the middle of nowhere

This is the closest the public footpath reaches to the summit tumulus. With Land Rovers continuing to buzz about, I tied George to a "no dogs" sign and strode to the summit.

From the summit, a view eastwards to the sea.

The summit shelter on the tumulus

George loyally waiting for me to come back.

An interesting feature of all three walks on the Moors has been the profusion of these stone boundary posts, which are everywhere.

George waits on a little bridge as we descend back to the car

When we arrived, the area around the trees was full of about a dozen cars, and we joined two others on the right - an hour an a half later, and only the three other cars remain. Back at the car, I was just putting things away when I heard a whistle. A train! I realised that we were parked just above the railway.

Here it is.

This is one of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway's specials along the Esk Valley line to Battersby Junction. We jumped into the car and gave chase.

But the train was much faster than the car, and it reached Battersby before us. Here at the Battersby level crossing, it is on its way back to Grosmont.

It was going quite a pace considering it had only just set off from the station - being a Network Rail line, the line speed is rather higher than the preserved railway, which probably gives the locomotive a better chance to show its abilities. But a fun and unexpected end to the day and the holiday.