Yorkshire Walks

This morning Jim, my neighbour, and I drove to the little car park at map ref. SE914868, on the edge of Wyeham forest near Cockmoor Hall. The weather was quite changeable with a few showers forecast.

At the car park we met three friends and the five of us set off just after 10.00am along the track heading east from the car park, then north east around the edge of the forest for about 1.5km to map ref. SE928879.

Here the track meets a narrow road where we at once turned off the road to follow a track through the woodland for about 600m to map ref. SE929884. There is a rather comlpex junction of several forest track here.

We stayed on the top track contouring round the hillside for another 1.5km to map ref. SE938894. At this point we turned left to follow a track down the hillside and across troutsdale Beck to the road at map ref. SE939900.

At the road we turned left to walk along the road tothe farm road at map ref. SE931898, leading to Freeze Gill Farm. At the farm we continued ona track above the side of the farm.

Farm equipment parked by the track

The track doubled back to climb the hillside to the edge of the woods above (map ref. SE925901). We found a large tree to sit under here with a good view down Freeze gill to Troutsdale. It was a good spot for a break. Parts of the route had been quite muddy so far and very tireing.

One of our friends, Charlie was very keen to show us some bargain self-heating sealed paper cups of coffee that he had bought in a sale. When the pack was opened some chemical reaction heated the coffee. It did sort-of work to produce a warm cup of liquid but it tasted awful - quite undrinkable! No wonder they were in a sale.

A pleasant path along the edge of the woodland above Freeze Gill Farm

A pleasant path along the edge of the woodland above Freeze Gill Farm

After our break we followed the track to the left. It turned out to be a very pleasant track along the lower edge of the forest. After about 600m the track turned up the hill to climb steeply through the trees to meet another forest track at the top of the hill.

Outdoor pigs near Givendale Head

The navigation here was very awkward. At each junction there seemed to be more tracks than are shown on the map, and it took us some time and some back-tracking to find the bridleway at map ref. SE917901. We followed this bridleway along some pleasant paths, again with a some difficulty, until it emerged into some pasture land at map ref. SE908901. The bridleway led us up a slope across two fields to map ref. SE903901. Here we turned left to cross the pasture land on Ebberston Low Moor. The path seems to have been diverted from the route shown on my map and it brought us to a pedestrian gate onto a forest road at map ref. SE899897. We followed this forest road for about 2.5km to Givendale Head Farm. We continued for about 500m beyond the farm to a track on the left at map ref. SE896871. We turned to follow this track for about 1.7km back to the little car park where we had started. The whole route had been about 15km and had taken us almost five hours to walk including our beaks and some back-tracking in the woods.