Millington to Thixendale

This is the central section of the Yorkshire Wolds Way (we passed the halfway point around Fridaythorpe) and it passes through glorious Wolds countryside. The weather forecast was dire, but the weather has not as bad as we had feared it would be. It had rained heavily in the night, and we put on all our waterproofs before leaving Laburnum Cottage. However we didn't need the waterproofs at all at this stage, and although it was initially misty the weather improved during the morning. There were a couple of heavy showers later in the day, but the main feature of the weather was the strong wind, which made for tiring walking on occasions.

We had a lovely breakfast at Laburnum Cottage, and the climb back up to the ridge was not as difficult as I had thought it might be. At the top we met another walker on the Yorkshire Wolds Way, who we got to know quite well over the next couple of days. She had stayed at different places up to now (she had come from Kilnwick Percy this morning) but, like us, she was heading to the Cross Keys in Thixendale today and Manor House Farm in East Hesterton tomorrow. She was generally walking rather faster than us, so we let her get ahead.

As the weather cleared there were lovely views to Millington Dale to our left then, as we descended, to Sylvan Dale. At the bottom of Sylvan Dale we stopped to take off our waterproofs because we could see the steepness of the climb ahead and thought we'd be too hot in all our layers. The map and guidebook both describe a path going straight up the hillside (with, according to the guidebook, steps up the steep section); a signpost showed our route going slightly more gently to the right - we should have taken that. Instead we went straight up the steep section, where any steps that had once been there had eroded, and it was difficult and quite scary. Moral of the story to us: signposts on the Yorkshire Wolds Way are accurate; follow them! Moral of the story to those signing the route: if a route is dangerous and you don't want people to follow it, put an explicit sign saying that this no longer the route. Anyway, we got to the top!

After a brief high level walk, we descended into Nettle Dale and climbed part-way out of the Dale before taking a more gently sloping path up to Jessop's Plantation. We emerged high above Pasture Dale and continued to climb gently. The scenery was magnificent, but it started to rain so we stopped to don waterproofs. We reached a road then took another high level path.

We reached a farm road which descended towards Huggate; the road seemed to go on and on, not helped by the fact that the rain had become heavier and I wanted my lunch! We could see Huggate Church up on the hill to our right and at a road junction we turned left and climbed again, through an avenue of trees on the approach to Northfield House.

We turned left onto a footpath and reached the edge of the delightful Horse Dale - and there was a bench, ideally placed for lunch. Well maybe - it was still raining, and it was cold in the wind! We stopped and ate the cocktail sausages and pork pies that we had bought in Market Weighton yesterday, and the weather improved as we were eating. It continued to improve as we descended into Horse Dale and rounded the corner into Holm Dale.

We climbed out of the end of Holm Dale and stopped for the rest of our lunch in the rather grand wood and glass bus shelter overlooking the pond in the village of Fridaythorpe. Fridaythorpe is the highest village in the Yorkshire Wolds and it is also the halfway point on the Yorkshire Wolds Way. We discovered later that the 'bus shelter' is actually one of the installations that form part of the 'Wander - Art on the Yorkshire Wolds Way' project. It's rather more useful than the others that we saw.

There was some more high level walking after Fridaythorpe, and the strong wind made it rather tiring. However the dales were stunning and the weather was improving all the time. We started by dropping down into West Dale, being overtaken by Claire (the walker who we had met this morning), who had stopped for a late lunch in Fridaythorpe. This Dale was a particularly attractive dry valley, with sheep and lambs.

Thixen Dale was delightful too, though the wind at the point we entered the Dale felt like a gale, and it blew away my camera lens cleaning cloths. We descended to another of the 'Wander - Art on the Yorkshire Wolds Way' installations, a series of swirling banks and ditches entitled 'Time and flow'. We walked north through Thixen Dale for about a mile, past various Hockneyesque trees, and we eventually turned left onto a minor road which took us to the village of Thixendale. You don't get anything other than minor roads round here, and all the roads out of the valley involve steep hills, so if it snows Thixendale quickly becomes cut off. It's a wonderfully isolated place.