enchantedengland:

Aysgarth, North Yorkshire

(we.love.england on Instagram)

My next railway station walk again breaks some of my self-created rules. It will be a railway station to railway station walk, Hessle in East Yorkshire to Filey in North Yorkshire. The difference, however, this time was that the walk would take 5 days!

I would be following the Yorkshire Wolds Way which is the least used and least well known of the 16 national trails in England and Wales. Its official length is 79 miles but with having to detour some distance on occasions for overnight accommodation and choosing the wrong path more often that I dare to admit, the total distance walked would be about 90 miles. It still does not sound much but, I assure you, that when carrying what felt like a full refrigerator on my back, it certainly felt a very long and exhausting way.  

So why this little used national trail starting on the edge of Hull and taking in a little visited part of Yorkshire? The answer is relatively simple. This is where I lived as a teenager and so is the part of the world which has probably had the greatest influence on who I am. I guess I was hoping that this walk would help exorcise the ghosts of growing-up in and going to school in Hull which, for me at least, resulted in some kind of double imposter syndrome. Firstly, the feeling of being an imposter because you grew up in, as so many surveys over the years have shown, the worst place to live in the UK. It was, therefore, inevitable that people would one day discover that you are thick and stupid. Secondly the feeling of being an imposter of at least a feeling of guilt, because the extent that you might achieve anything, it seemed unfair and undeserving because most other people in the city you lived in never had such opportunities.

The walk would also be through the land of my grandparents who lived in East Yorkshire long before my family moved here and so the Yorkshire Wolds hold many even older happy memories of visits to them and playing in the hills I would be walking through.

My plan was to walk the first two days alone with my thoughts and memories. On the second night a friend of mine from Birmingham would be joining me and we would be walking the last three days together.

And so I found myself at 10 am at Hessle station. I’d caught a train from Kings Cross and changed to a local train at Doncaster. I then changed at the wonderfully named Goole to an even more local train with no more than 3 other passengers on board.

As soon as I got off the train at Hessle the memories came flooding back. This is where I used to catch the train in the morning for the 8 minute ride into the centre of Hull where I went to school. As I came out of the station I was immediately faced with a dilemma. I could turn left and walk the 400 metres to my old house or turn right and make my way to the start of the walk. I turned right. I’d rather not go back. The Smiths’ tune Back to the Old House seemed extremely apt and now kept going through my head.

The official start of the Yorkshire Wolds Way is at Hessle Haven, a short walk from the station. Back in my days, there used to be a shipyard here, Dunstons. It seemed it closed over 20 years ago and all trace has gone. I remembered I once took a photograph of the shipyard cranes silhouetted against the sunrise. I remembered my first SLR camera, a Soviet Zenit E. I can still smell that leather case it came in. I remembered how this area had kindled my love of photography and so I remembered that this place may not be so bad after all! I took a photograph of a sign telling me I had 79 miles to walk assuming the impossible, namely that I do not stray from the official path.

Within a few minutes the path takes you under the magnificent Humber Bridge. When it was opened in the early 1980s it was the world’s longest single span suspension bridge. It was though a bridge from nowhere to nowhere. It did, however, launch another of my great loves, running. Every Wednesday afternoon I, together with some friends and the woodwork teacher from school, used to do a ten mile run across the bridge into what was then South Humberside and is now Lincolnshire. Unlike photography which I’ve only returned to in recent years, my love of running has never waned and I still run almost everyday. After years of bitterness, I was beginning to feel more positive towards Hull already. This walk was working and I’d been going less than 30 minutes!

The route now followed a new path, well a path that had never existed in my time here, right along the edge of the Humber. I kept looking back over my shoulder at the impressive Humber Bridge. Shortly before the village of North Ferriby, I noticed an empty “ice pop” plastic tube on the ground. So bizarre as I remembered I’d had my first “ice pop” in this very village when visiting a friend. Surely this discarded plastic tube hadn’t been here over 40 years or is North Ferriby the last outpost of ice pops? I started to remember my friends. How many were still here either in Hull or its outskirts? I’d lost touch with all of them but they’d fallen into two distinct groups: those who stayed in Hull and those who got as far away from Hull as possible. And when I say “as faraway as possible”, I really mean it. So many emigrated, be it to Europe, the USA or New Zealand. Others joined the RAF, army or navy to take them away. I was kind of the exception. I moved to Birmingham!

All these thoughts distracting me now led me to a tactical error. The Yorkshire Wolds Way takes two alternative routes around North Ferriby. The high tide route or the low tide route. I’d noticed it was lowish tide so I blindly followed the low tide route. I should have known better. I grew up round here and should have realized that the low tide route meant trekking through the Humber foreshore and so trekking through think mud. Sure enough I quickly found boots sinking in the mud. How had a Roman army had once walked across the Humber very close to here some 2000 years ago? Clearly, they weren’t carrying the weight I was on my back!

Also, the Roman army wasn’t staying in one of the area’s better hotels in South Cave after their crossing. I was now thinking, how could I turn up at the hotel with my boots and trousers caked in the Humber’s finest mud? Rather than turn back and follow the high tide route, I then made my second tactical error. Between the mud and the houses on the Humber edge, there was an embankment made of large boulders, presumably to act as some sort of flood defence. I decided that I would scramble along this embankment of boulders. Up on the embankment I was unstable trying to step from boulder to boulder and, as I was carrying the equivalent a full refrigerator on my back, was likely topple down the embankment any time I slightly lost my balance. On the other side of a fence at the top of the embankment were the back gardens on the houses whose rears looked over the Humber. I had a choice: sink in the mud, seriously injure myself by falling down the embankment of boulders or climb over the fence and sneak through the gardens of the houses. I chose the latter but felt a bit of a criminal as I strode quickly through this row of back gardens. Unfortunately, the back gardens ended maybe 50 metres or so short of where a sensible path started again. This meant I had no choice but to risk life and limb and cross the embankment of boulders again. After a major wobble on one bolder, I decided the safest route for this last 50 meters was to descend and splatter my way through the Humber mud. So much for my ridiculous attempts to avoid the mud. My boots and trousers were thoroughly caked in it now. I had some vague decades old recollection that there was a pond in the next village en route, Welton. Therefore, with renewed vigour I set-off for Welton and a much-needed wash!

The path now moved away from the Humber and turned inland through some woods and upwards into the Wolds. Strange but I had some memories of playing in these woods and I was convinced that one house I passed was where a friend had lived and where I’d played football in the back garden. Even stranger was that I came across a tree with Housemartins’ lyrics on it. I strode on happily humming “Build”to myself.

Guess what? Welton doesn’t have a pond. My memory had let me down. Hang on. Not so fast! It did have a nice wide shallow stream running through the village. So, it had water to wash in and so my memory was not quite as bad as I thought. There were a few kids playing in the stream. They must have wondered what I was up to as I walked up and down in the stream, inspecting my boots and trousers every few minutes to see if they were getting cleaner.

Content that my boots were now in a fit state to walk into a hotel, I made my way out of Welton. I had forgotten just how nice the villages on the west side of Hull were.  I wondered if I’d have ended up living in one of them, instead of East London, if I’d decided not to leave Hull. I wondered what my life would have been like. Would I have been happier, richer and a rugby league fan? By the time I had concluded that probably only one in that list would have applied and that this was both a pointless and dangerous train of thought, I noticed that I was walking towards the Humber Bridge again.

I consulted the Ordnance Survey app on my phone. True enough I had missed a turn and was heading 90 degrees off course. I knew having those thoughts was dangerous! Worse still I was a good mile or so away from the right path. I had no choice but to retrace my steps, cursing that my 79 mile walk was now 81 miles and that I lost at least 40 minutes or so valuable rest/ beer time at the end of the day.

The rest of the days walking was up and down “dale” as some of the valleys in the Wolds are named although they are nothing like The Yorkshire Dales. They are much lower and are a mixture of woods and farmland. I’d cycled up and down all these “dales” as a teenager. It was confusing though. Sometimes they felt very familiar and memories returned. Other times, it seemed like I was seeing them for the first-time even though I must have been in them many times.

I left the Yorkshire Wolds Way, east of the village of South Cave. It was over a mile to the hotel which was frustrating as I knew I’d have to cover that distance again the following morning before I could start reducing the mileage left on the walk. Good news though. My boots were clean enough to get into the hotel so at least I would have a bed for the night!

Day 1137 - the Yorkshire Wolds Way, Day 2

The next leg of my walk would take me from South Cave to Pocklington. Pocklington was at least 2 miles off the Yorkshire Wolds Way but I’d chosen to stop there nevertheless for two reasons: (1) it was where my grandparents had lived and (2) I was meeting up with my friend and I figured it was a relatively easy place to find.

From South Cave the walk goes upwards through some woods and from here I had my last glimpses of the Humber. At the top of the woods, I was surprised to discover a vineyard! I figure that this must be the most northerly vineyard in the UK. My subsequent research reveals that it is not but does reveal that some of the vines here produce red wine. Who’d have thought that red wine could be made so far north in the UK? Sadly, as this leg to Pocklington was about 35km (it always sounds more impressive in km!), I had no time for a tasting. I did however order a few bottles when I got home and they are genuinely fantastic.

After a brief time out in the open, the walk goes through a lengthy spell of woodland on the Drewton Estate. I do like a well-maintained woodland! After a steep climb to exit the woods, I was into the Yorkshire Wolds proper with views of golden wheat all around. I didn’t realise at the time but that was really my last bit of proper woodland for the rest of the walk to Filey.

I was now walking on the western edge of the Wolds. Off to my left there were fantastic views across the Vale of York, slightly spoilt by the odd power station way off in the distance. On this part of the route there are two official options. You can drop down off the Wolds and pass through the small town of Market Weighton or keep to the higher ground and pass through the village of Goodmanham. A big part of me wanted to visit Market Weighton as it is where my grandfather had worked. As a small child, I’d visited him “at work” on many occasions. It was always a place a laughter and bonhomie. I would then discover for myself, once I had to earn a living for myself, what a unique place his work was and how it takes a special person to create such an infectious atmosphere. However, the Market Weighton detour was a mile and a half and an extra mile and a half with a refrigerator on my back would feel more like 10 miles. I was also convinced that where he worked had probably now been demolished and converted into a housing estate. A subsequent check on Google Maps showed I was wrong. It had been demolished and actually turned into a Tesco! I was relieved I had made the right decision.

Unusually for the Yorkshire Wolds Way, this section of the walk took me through villages, not only Goodmanham but also Londesborough and Nunburnholme. Not that I saw anybody in these villages. Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the Yorkshire Wolds Way is that you see absolutely nobody. You can walk for hours and not pass another person. It is certainly the place to go if you are seeking solitude!

My overnight stop was the small town of Pocklington where I was meeting my friend, R, who would join me for the rest of the walk. Unfortunately, Pocklington is about 2 miles or so off the Yorkshire Wolds Way. I plotted the shortest route which took me right across a golf course (on a legal footpath) much to the annoyance of the golfers. The golf course did, however, have a rather nice-looking hotel. I regretted cancelling the booking I had here, largely because I was by now tired and still had a good mile to walk into Pocklington.

I had, however, been keen to spend the night at the Feathers hotel in Pocklington. Not because it was the height of luxury but because my grandmother always used to pop in there for a scotch on her weekly shopping trips into Pocklington. The Feathers did not disappoint. It looked like it hadn’t had an upgrade since the 1970/80s. It was the perfect time warp. I kept expecting to see my grandmother sat in the bay window in the bar, confidently downing her scotch and thinking about another one whilst other family members tried to stop her. I think she would have been happy to know that she was right as she lived into her nineties.

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