Walk: 1pm to 3:30pm, 4 miles and 400ft of ascent
We woke up this morning to dark skies heavy with rain, however it was fully expected so thankfully no plans had to be changed. Whilst forecasts did differ depending on which one you read, in the main it suggested that it would stop early to mid morning and then dry up in the afternoon.
Our plan therefore was to stay in Helmsley in the morning and then do a relatively short local walk in the afternoon when the weather picked up. We headed out of the cottage around 10am and our first port of call was Cinamon Twist, a small bakery only open a few days each week but one with a good reputation. It's only a small shop with a relatively small range of home-made food but boy what quality. We purchased a selection of goods for tea tonight; roll on 8hrs from now.
We had a look around a few shops but didn't buy anything of note, then ventured to the Sugared Butterfly for a hot chocolate, our second of the week; just how naughty are we? We were tempted to have some brunch but decided instead to have some egg on toast at lunchtime as we had 6 fresh eggs in the fridge back at the cottage. No point in wasting good food.
By about 11:45am we were back at the cottage so put our feet up for a short while then made some egg sandwiches; a slight amendment from the original eggs on toast plan but just as tasty. By 1pm the rain was long gone so we decided to head off on our afternoon walk.
Our route saw us pick up the Cleveland Way just north of Helmsley Castle; this point is the starting point of the 110 mile Cleveland Way which takes you across the moors to Saltburn and then down the coast to Filey. We've walked all of the coastal section between Whitby and Filey in sections over the last few years, but the full 110 miles, I think not!
We followed the path for about 1.5 miles then headed back in towards the Duncombe Park estate. Much of this section was uphill although not very steep, but I must admit that I was struggling as a result of the cold that I've had for nearly 2 weeks now, breathing is a little difficult to say the least but I did soldier on. Donna was clearly the fitter one today.
We did hit a bit of a problem here as the path we had planned to take was marked as 'No right of way' so we had to make a bit of an unplanned detour to get where we wanted to be. The problem was that it doesn't show you on an OS map where the boundary of the Duncombe Park parkland extends to, so although the parkland itself is open to the public, getting to it from the public footpath was easier said than done!
After eventually getting to where we wanted to be (well almost) we took the path down past the stunning Duncombe Park house, a beautifully grand house, but one that's not open to the public is it's a private residence. Continuing past the house the Ionic Temple was shrouded in scaffolding as they had rebuilt much of it due to it being very much worn down by the weather. Mind you, it is almost 300 tears old. On the fence there was a sign with details of the repairs, names of the the sponsors, and it showed the cost of the restoration being just short of £194,000. A fair sum indeed.
As we got towards the bottom of the parkland we walked past the south facing side of the castle, and of course I was carrying my camera to it would have been rude not to have taken some photos from outside of the fence. Just a 5 minute walk back to the cottage and a restful evening ahead.
We woke up this morning to dark skies heavy with rain, however it was fully expected so thankfully no plans had to be changed. Whilst forecasts did differ depending on which one you read, in the main it suggested that it would stop early to mid morning and then dry up in the afternoon.
Our plan therefore was to stay in Helmsley in the morning and then do a relatively short local walk in the afternoon when the weather picked up. We headed out of the cottage around 10am and our first port of call was Cinamon Twist, a small bakery only open a few days each week but one with a good reputation. It's only a small shop with a relatively small range of home-made food but boy what quality. We purchased a selection of goods for tea tonight; roll on 8hrs from now.
We had a look around a few shops but didn't buy anything of note, then ventured to the Sugared Butterfly for a hot chocolate, our second of the week; just how naughty are we? We were tempted to have some brunch but decided instead to have some egg on toast at lunchtime as we had 6 fresh eggs in the fridge back at the cottage. No point in wasting good food.
Our route saw us pick up the Cleveland Way just north of Helmsley Castle; this point is the starting point of the 110 mile Cleveland Way which takes you across the moors to Saltburn and then down the coast to Filey. We've walked all of the coastal section between Whitby and Filey in sections over the last few years, but the full 110 miles, I think not!
We followed the path for about 1.5 miles then headed back in towards the Duncombe Park estate. Much of this section was uphill although not very steep, but I must admit that I was struggling as a result of the cold that I've had for nearly 2 weeks now, breathing is a little difficult to say the least but I did soldier on. Donna was clearly the fitter one today.
As we got towards the bottom of the parkland we walked past the south facing side of the castle, and of course I was carrying my camera to it would have been rude not to have taken some photos from outside of the fence. Just a 5 minute walk back to the cottage and a restful evening ahead.
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