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A group of 5 of us met above Baysdale at map ref. NZ 654064 where there is a little area to park 3 or 4 cars off the road. We set off at around 10.45am to walk a couple of hundred metres back up the road to pick up a bridleway to our left heading west over the heather moor. The heather is the reason for our choice of route to-day. The early bell heather is almost finished now but the ling heather which covers most of the moor is at its best and the entire hillside is just a carpet of purple. The weather was hot and humid and after walking about 2 km we reached the pretty crossing of Great Hograh Beck where we stopped for a drink before climbing up the moor on the other side of the beck. After about 0.5 km from the beck the bridleway continues straight on but we kept left on a well walked path (not marked on the map) which turns south to join a moorland track which in turn is joined (at map ref NZ 629058) by a bridleway coming up from Baysdale Abbey. We followed the track south for 2.5km to the head of the valley and then back north on the other side of the valley until the bridleway led us down the end of the hill to Baysdale Abbey - not an abbey any longer but a large well kept farm. We continued through the yard at the side of the farm on to the farm road beside Baysdale Beck. We followed the track for about a kilometre to map ref. NZ 627074 where we turned left to follow the sign posted route straight up the hillside to map ref. NZ 627077. From here the path follows the top side of the wall to join a bridleway at map ref. NZ 632078.We continued on the bridleway along the valley side for 1.5km and then cut down the hillside through the bilberries for about 200metres to join the path on the bank of Baysdale Beck which we followed to the Hob Hole picnic area. The stream was full of paddling children and the grass was dotted with family picnics - a very happy scene on this hot summers day. From Hob Hole we walked along the road for a kilometre back to our starting point. the whole route was about 13km and took us four and a half hours including several drinks stops on this very hot day. We stopped at the Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge on the way home for a long cool drink.

Path beside Baysdale beck

Baysdale beck