coast to coast 2011
coast to coast - day 16
Beggars Bridge B&B, Glaisdale to Intake Farm, Littlebeck
7.62 miles 1,319 feet.
Start: 09:10 Finish: 12:15 Elapsed time: 3:05 Cumulative time: 93:30
A third short day in a row. The traditional C2C route does the last 37 miles from Clay Bank Top to Robin Hood’s Bay in 2 days but I decided that this was too much for me, hence the 3 shorter days followed by 12 miles on the final day. Leaving Glaisdale I had a very pleasant walk on an old paved packhorse route through Arnecliff Wood before a short section of road brought me to the double set of stepping stones at Egton Bridge.
The route from Egton Bridge to Grosmont followed the path of an old toll road and the sign above shows the charges that were levied for differing users. As it is now a public right of way, there is no charge for pedestrians. My next stop was Grosmont station where after a cup of tea I watched the 10:30 steam train depart for Pickering.
I knew that on leaving Grosmont that there was a 1-in-3 climb up the road before crossing the A169 Pickering to Whitby road. What I hadn’t appreciated was just how steep this was and that it would go on for nearly 1½ miles climbing almost 800ft. The sweat was pouring off me by the time I reached the top. The compensation was the views back to where I had come and off towards Whitby where the sea was in sight but I still had another 15 miles or so to go before dipping my toes.
After crossing the A169 there was a gentle downhill stroll to Intake Farm where, despite another early arrival, I was greeted by Judith with a cup of tea and a slice of cake. As my luggage didn’t arrive until about 15:30, I whiled away my time watching even more tennis on TV. Intake Farm is just about the only accommodation available at this point on the route and whilst it lacks en-suite facilities, this is more than compensated for by Judith’s home cooking (£15 for a 3 course evening meal). There were 10 of us staying overnight but this didn’t seem to faze Judith and Intake Farm scored 8/10 in recognition of the excellent food.