Kildale to Saltburn-by-the-Sea
Saturday 14th June 2008
15 miles on Cleveland Way
We had a lovely leisurely breakfast, chatting to Tina and Andrea - Newlands House is a wonderful B&B. Andrea gave us a lift back to Kildale and as yesterday we let Tina set off walking first. We left Kildale about 9.30am and had an excellent day's walking. Despite the relatively long distance and a number of ascents and descents (including the climb up Roseberry Topping and back) we were in Saltburn by 4.30pm. The weather was mostly dry and sunny, with occasional showers.
From Kildale we climbed up the road and then into woodland and through to Captain Cook's monument - a 60 foot column erected in his honour in 1827, complete with some rather old-fashioned language relating to Cook's Christian duty to look after the 'natives'.
We descended through a plantation to a road and carpark and then climbed steeply onto Great Ayton Moor. We followed the path across the moor for a mile or so, then through a gate for the detour to Roseberry Topping. The path starts by descending through bracken and at this point we saw, and were able to photograph, a deer on the hillside to our right.
Then there's a steep but relatively short climb to the top of Roseberry Topping (at 1050 feet; 320 metres) and you're rewarded by superb views in all directions. There were impressive rainclouds over Teesside.
After descending from Roseberry Topping we crossed some very attractive moorland (Newton Moor then Hutton Moor) and passed below Black Nab and Highcliffe Farm. Eventually we reached woodland and stopped for our lunch at a bench before walking around Highcliff Nab with good views down to Guisborough. Sampson says 'from here the Cleveland Way takes you on 2 miles of route-finding exercise through Guisborough Woods' - actually the route was quite strightforward but a bit lacking in woods! There had been extensive and recent felling, which led to rather unattractive scenery and difficult walking, over ground where machines had been working and with branches etc. on the ground to trip you up.
We emerged from Guisborough Woods to an attractive but fiddly section of path around the main road at Slapewath. First we headed east through Spa Wood (crossed by motorbike tracks, but no motorbikes today and pretty woodland). We eventually turned left along the 'old road' then crossed the 'new road' and turned back up the old road past the Fox and Hounds pub. We climbed steeply round and old quarry and beyond, with excellent views behind us then, at the brow of the hill, good views ahead of us to the sea. We followed Airy Hill Lane for a mile or so; this gave good views to the village of Boosbeck to our right and to Skelton in front of us, but it was a tarmaced lane so rather hard on the knees.
We reached first Skelton Green then Skelton, both rather more attractive than I'd expected. Skelton has a long history and a castle! We walked through a housing estate (larger than shown on the map) then under the A174 and into woodland. This soon became an attractive wooded valley, around Skelton Beck, though there were quite steep ascents and descents. We crossed the Beck and passed under the railway viaduct before climbing to an attractive metal seat. The recommended route to the B&B leaves the path here, but we decided to follow the path through the gorge to the seafront first. We got our passports stamped at the Tourist Information Centre near the Station then had an icecream from a van conveniently parked above the Cliff Railway (one of those water-powered things). Saltburn was originally a tiny fishing village, also involved in panning salt from the sea (hence the name) and in smuggling. However it was 'reinvented' in the 1860s by the Victorian industrialist and entrepeneur Henry Pease, who built the railway station, Zetland Hotel (now apartments, as featured in 'Coast'), cliff railway, pier and grid-like street pattern, with houses built with the light-coloured bricks from his works in County Durham.
We found the Victorian Guest House (not 'Victoria Guest House' as in the Contours literature) in Oxford Road and we were welcomed by Stuart Morgan. It's an amazing place - all the fittings and furnishings are Victorian or in Victorian style. Richard was puzzled by the direction of view from our bedroom window, which was towards Hunt Cliff where we will be walking tomorrow. We eventually realised that our room was over the antique shop on the corner, so we were not overlooking Oxford Street. We followed Mr Morgan's advice and had fish and chips at The Ship Inn on the seafront ('famous for its smuggling connections and also where an organised crime syndicate operated in the eighteenth century under the landlord, John Andrew'). The pub was busy but we found a table overlooking the beach and watched the surfers, one of whom was quite good. Saltburn appears to be being reinvented (again!) as a surfing resort. After eating we returned to the Victorian Guest House and watched the Trooping of the Colour on television.
