11/04/18 - Day 3 - Inn Way to North Yorkshire Moors - From Levisham

Start - Levisham
Finish - Egton Bridge
Distance -  15 Miles
Key Features - The Moors, A Forest, Heartbeat, Best Meal of the Way, Best Pub of the Way
Geocaches - 10
Pubs - 6 Available, 4 Successfully visited, 1 passed by, 1 closed
Previous Stages - Day 1, Day 2


Day 3 of the Inn Way and for my money, the best day of them all.  We have the Moors for the first (and second) time.  We have varied walking through forests.  We have the best pub and the best meal.  We have the worst pub.   We have Nick Berry.

All of life is here!  I just need the weather.  You just need to strap yourself in for a lengthy blog.

At least its not raining

So a day that promises the most beautiful views and I am denied by mist.  We can all look at what I could have won at another blog.

Levisham starts high and in no time, I am out on the first moors of the trip.   Levisham Moor is a gentle introduction with good paths, providing easy navigation to a couple of items of interest.

Skelton Tower - Location of a rare Virtual Cache

The Waterfall at Hudson's Cross

To break up the bleakness, the route drops down to the railway and climbs to the breath taking view point of Needle Point.   No point me sharing photos of cloud, so here's what its like to walk through a forest.

Cropton Forest

Its a fair distance through the trees on good forest rides until I reach Wardle Green.  It's amazing how the landscape changes.  In an instant, I'm out into what I would call proper, featureless moorland.  There's nothing but heather and those mental birds that scare the life out of you by taking flight on your approach and then gliding back to the ground going "clak, clak, clak, clak".   They are my only friends.   There's no other life up here.  I have no idea who left the footprints I am following or when.

A Rare Directional Sign in the heather

Simon Howe and the Pile of Stones

After a good couple of miles of this, it then becomes a completely surreal experience to enter a Theme Park Village.  It's when I reach the 1950's police car that I realise that Goathland is the setting for Heartbeat's fictional Aidensfield.

Our route guide sums it up best when he says

"Places you have never visited before feel familiar with an uneasy feeling of deja vu at almost every corner" 

That, and looking completely at odds with the first humans that you have seen all day who are milling around aimlessly and pretending to enjoy themselves.

But what about the Pubs Mappiman?

There are three and get this, I actually walk on past the first one.  The Spout House Bar looks a bit posh for someone carrying everything they currently need for a week and looking as I do.

Too Posh

I mistakenly think the Inn on the Moor is an Inn.  Its more of a posh coffee lounge but to be fair, after the rushed of her feet solo barperson has made 7 cappuccinos for the blue rinse brigade paying separately (in coppers, may I add), she does pour me the best Black Sheep of the entire journey.  A delightful pint in sterile conditions.

When is an Inn not an Inn?

And on to the Goathland Hotel, where the proprietor has changed the name to the Aidensfield Arms, to lure in the Nick Berry fanclub.

And talk about being careful what you wish for.  The place is mental busy with runaround kids, the indecisive elderly and the quite frankly insane and he is having to work like a trojan.   I order my Black Sheep and he gives me the 1000 yard stare.  I ask him if there is a problem.  After a sigh and a pause he says "You haven't said if you want a pint or a half" in the most cheerless, morose Yorkshire accent imaginable.

His beer is terrible too.... vinegary rubbish that I was too scared to complain about.   And if you think I am being harsh, just check out the TripAdvisor reviews.

1st Inn Way Sticker!

Nick Berry's Local - I was out of there in a heartbeat quickly

I tweet my disappointment and the route designer instantly replies that fear not, for the best pub is just around the corner.

How he found it 20 years ago, I don't know.  I found it by fighting my way through the crowds recently disgorged from the Steam train and following my GPS for around a mile to Beck Hole.

And there, just past the teenager on a bridge desperately trying to get a signal from someone's WiFi, is the lonely and exceptional looking Birch Hall Inn.

Birch Hall Inn - Fully Licenced with a Sweet Shop next door

Sensing my approach, I hear the door bolt scratch.  They've read my tweet and want to restore my faith in good Yorkshire Beer and joyful service!

Well actually, he's on his way out to Goathland and the pub doesn't open till 7:30pm.  This, despite being a Good Beer Guide 2018 entry that states 11-11 opening hours.

There's not much chance of any future InnWayers getting a tick here, as we have a good 4 miles of agricultural walking to our home for the night at Egton Bridge.

I'm mud splattered and tired, which leads to a navigational error putting me on the wrong side of the River Esk to where I am staying at the Horseshoe Hotel, another GBG 2018 Entry.  Not to worry, there are stepping stones that can avoid a lengthy (everything seems lengthy after 15 miles) retrace of steps and never have I made a finer entrance to a pub.

My room?  Top Left.  I'm in the bathroom trying to get peat off goretex.

Lovely host, perfect En Suite Double Bed room but if I get too settled, I'll never get out to explore the Postgate Inn.

Breaking with tradition and being a good pub next to a railway station

The Postgate is a foody pub, with an exceptional menu written on slates and hung above the fire place.  The beer (a single Cameron's Strong Arm) was not much to write home about but in a week of fine evening meals, my chicken wrapped in bacon on a gnocchi bed was the best.

So I eat up and head back to the Horseshoe.  At last, a proper pub with a fishing memorabilia laden bar full of drinkers and a well behaved Patterdale Terrier.  There's good banter between us all and its obvious that whilst I have been eating, they've all been drinking.  Hard.

Eventually the following are left;

The great barman host - the kind that pours spirits with no need of a measure.
The Patterdale Terriers Owner, who is as drunk as a lord
A couple on a dirty midweek break.
Yours Truly.

Lots of laughs and raucous conversations until our couple decide to have one more artisan G&T before talking too loudly about what they are going to do to each other when they get to their room.

Patterdale Terrier Man fusses his dog.  Barman cleans some glasses.  I pretend to read my newspaper for a 2nd time today, attempting to do the easiest and last remaining sudoku.

They sense they need to be a bit more discreet and their conversation drops to a series of flirtatious giggles and the clinking of goldfish bowl sized gin chalices.

This continues until the man erupts in a temper and shouts "Oh Love, I cannot believe you forgot to pack the lingerie."