Rosedale

We thought the verges here weren't as auto friendly as before - don't bring a Porsche - and try to avoid sunny Sundays' parking problems, but drive you must because there is no Moorsbus route here yet.

We got out, the lapwing flew off, a moorland track warmed us up, you've just got to get on with it and the birds were, bang in breeding season.

The biggest, the curlews were climbing into the sky and then gliding down and trilling, a snipe arrowed low over the heather and the lapwings were pulling tight curves on broad flashing wings.

Otherwise we passed white-tipped wooden posts probably for shooters, a tall pile of stones and descended into Hamerdale, a fair-sized, fair-looking valley.

Flocks of mixed finches including siskins bounced along the hedges and down to the wooded beck. We were stopped in our tracks as wave after wave of fieldfares with a soft chirping twittering glided out of tall silver birch trees and on to patches of pasture. They are large thrushes of the Turdus genus.

This performance went on for ages and there was a rock for a sandwich stop, a ruined farmstead nearby and the scything flight of a predator.

The valley was easy to get out of but again we halted in amazement. Man's work this time, the extraordinary sight of a line of mown heather two yards wide along the line of a footpath.

Who is to complain that others can have painted topped marker posts but walkers can't when you get a runner of heather carpet?

Then there were roadside grouse butts and a pond still quiet of life but for the death throws of a small pale butterfly.

On the track a big hairy caterpillar of the fox moth sunned itself after hibernation. They eat mid-summer heather and are toxic to touch.

Gradually Rosedale opened to view and we dipped into North Dale which is hidden from the fray but spacious. All the while a flock of lapwings mugged a threatening crow.

A gully led us back up to the moor and left just the crossing of a shallow valley. There were more grouse butts of wooden pallets or subterranean stonework and more associated white posts and high-altitude pheasants. Plus red lichens, vivid orange/green mosses and best the waters of the beck that ran beautifully between lips and cushions of club mosses.

The finish is at two sorts of humps, old spoil heaps and timber-lined grouse butts like machine-gun bunkers.

fact file

Distance: Five miles.

Time: Three hours.

General location: North York Moors.

Start: GR. 744 994. Track with bridleway sign and barrier. Roadside boulders.

Right of way: Public and usage.

Date walked: Friday, April 1, 2005.

Road route: From Rosedale Abbey road signed Egton 9 miles, for about three miles, half a mile past Hamer Beck.

Car parking: Roadside and grass, opposite start, a little further north on the road and also just along first road junction north.

Lavatories: Rosedale Abbey.

Refreshments: Rosedale Abbey.

Tourist and public transport information: The Moors Centre Danby 01287 660540.

Map: Based on OS Explorers OL 26 and 27 North York Moors eastern and western areas.

Terrain: Moor and valley.

Points of interest: A route overlapping two OS maps, the sort often overlooked.

Difficulty: Moderate in good weather.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

Track (barrier, bridleway sign, boulders to one side).

After fields ignore left fork. Pass 'pile of stones', 100 yards, right at white painted rock, 100 yards down to fieldgate then farm, right into yard, left after house to tarmac drive.

Bridge, track on right (signed), cross two fields.

Before gateway into third field with ruin turn left uphill by fence to your right (waymark). Fieldgate to moor, 100 yards by wall then as it curves away carry straight on gently uphill on mown heather route.

Left to road. 100 yards. Footpath on right (signed, mown), 150 yards, right to dirt track. Track dips, on right-hand bend with culvert left across heather for ten yards, right to 'parallel' grass track downhill, fieldgate in wall into field.

At gully and 100 yards before wall right uphill on grass by gully.

Fieldgate to moor and track, 200 yards, straight over tracks junction. Becomes faint path to sunken grouse butts (were white posts). Path vanishes, so now aim for spoil heaps on the horizon, c50 degrees magnetic from butt 3/7, down to beck, slab bridge, uphill, connect with stone wall to right, path, when wall curves away take mown heather path through spoil heaps to road.

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 15:02 Friday, April 08, 2005