Distance: 12.5 miles
Weather: warm and sunny
Falls: 1 (me)
Unidentified noises: 1
Sunburnt ears: 1 (mine)
Strange rashes on hand: 1 (me)
Despite the above, day's walk was grand. It was cold as we left Hutton-le-Hole and the path up from the village seemed very steep indeed. It soon levelled out and went along what is described as an old holloway, which turns out is a narrow path under a hawthorn tree tunnel, lined with primroses, harebells and red campion.
The holloway ended at the corner of some large fields and we walked alongside a wall, watching three hares lolloping about. The next village was Spaunton which seemed to be populated entirely by sheep, and then we walked through Lastingham (very, very pretty and apparently has a unique 11th century crypt in the church that we might have gone to look at if it hadn't been up a very steep path in the wrong direction) and up onto the moors.
On the gate there were signs warning about extreme risk of fires, and indeed there were a lot of burnt patches of heather. Some of it had grass growing back up and a few leaves so the fire must have been a couple of weeks ago, but some looked and smelled very recent indeed. Coming down a dusty, rocky path, I slipped and fell, but wasn't hurt and no one saw. We crossed over Tranmire Beck, passed some grimy, sooty looking sheep, and up the other side. Here we heard a very strange huffing noise behind us. I even went back to see what was there, but there was nothing, and annoyingly, the noise remains unidentified.
We skirted a bog and then contoured around the moor, accompanied by stonechats, ignoring the public footpath signs tempting us to cut the corner off, because the guidebook says there is no bridge that way. Once we'd followed our path down and back along the river we took a short detour before crossing the bridge to see if there was a footbridge these days. There isn't, just some stepping stones that were just above the surface of the water today, but after any rain at all would be submerged. As we returned along the rocky path by the river, we saw some cows coming down the field towards us quite purposefully. We thought they were coming to see us, but were quite surprised when they revealed themselves as AquaCows by wading straight into the stream for a drink and a paddle.
We crossed the bridge and headed up a forest track and through some woodland to emerge near to the Blacksmith Arms Hotel, where we stopped for a pot of tea.
Leaving the hotel there was a brief bit of road walking down a windy lane, and the we turned off up another forest track into Cropton Forest, lined with enormous seething ant hills. As the main track zigzagged its way uphill, we took some steeper rocky paths up through the trees. Towards the higher ground, it leveled out and we had a gravelled track passed High Muffles, a farm in the middle of the forest (near to Muffles Slack, Muffles Rigg, Muffles Bridge, Low Muffles and Muffles Dyke.)
Stopping to take a photo of some Hebridian sheep and lambs, we had a chat with the farmer who explained that the white sheep were mostly Texels, but the particular sheep I asked about was a mule, a cross between a Blue Faced Leicester and a Texel.
Going through Stope, we turned off through some fields and then had a moment of confusion when the paths on the ground didn't agree with the paths on the map, because they had planted a lot of trees since the map was last updated. Stony Moor is now upland heath with trees and shrubs.
Being careful, we came down a steep down hill track to the Levisham station on the North Yorks Moor railway line (no cafe) and then followed a grassy path up the other side of the valley into Levisham village, stopping to sit and watch the steam trains below.
The Horseshoe Inn at Levisham is very comfortable, and has the best showers and seem to be very agreeable to awkward people who request early breakfasts. They also have very good showers.
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