Eight: Yorkshire: East Rounton to Wiewang.

June 14, 2013

I overslept this morning. My watch showed 6.47 when I realised where I was. I think it was the three nights staying up late while in the hostel in Newcastle which had reset my body-clock. I didn't wait long, I'd the tent down by seven, as the village was a short distance to the left and a farm not far to the right of my gateway campsite. I'd everything packed and on the bike, making it look like I was only stopped picnicking, which I was, eating breakfast of muesli and having tea. At twenty to eight I was gone.

The blue cycle-route signs guided me onwards round a busy A road with turnings for: Teeside, Thirsk and Northalleton; and took me upover a gentle slope past pylons and giant wind-turbines in fields of the yellow rape-seed, then down to Stokeley.

Continuing south with Teeside (Middlesbrough) to the distant right, behind me.

Second breakfast outside the grocery shop in Stokeley.

The main thoroughfare wound it's way through towm between shops and sturdy Yorkshire stone houses, past a green, until I pulled up in front of a Co-opertive grocery-shop. It was quite a bit to the next town so I wanted more to eat and I didn't lock the bike when I entered as the police station was just opposite. I needed water too, to boil the water for pasta if I didn't reach a town by lunch.

There's new legislation at home to do with supermarket plastic carrier-bags. They'll no longer give them away for free. Here it isn't so. "You'll be havin a bag" said the check-out girl. She gave me two even though I only bought a bottle of water, a can of coke, a banana and a au raison. They're useful for waterproofing things. My front panniers are from 1997 and one has a big hole. Plus it was careless of me to scrape the rear-left against a wall and now it too is no longer watertight.

Outside by the shopping-trolleys I was using the atlas which I'd strapped on top of the front-pannier as a table and had set out my breakfast for a photo. "Ye cy-kelled far" came from a man on a shopping-bike. Hard to say how old he was but I'd say he was a youthful seventy. He took a keen interest in the Galaxy. I told him this particular model suits me, all the others have STI integrated gear and brake levers; and I don't want them wearing out somewhere and having to ride in one gear to the next town. "A know.I hav them on m-eye road-by-ike and they are so finicky" He went on then to tell me about his forthcoming cycle-tour in Croatia.......

......Then at a roundabout on the way out of town, Is stopped looking at the map. when a stooped old woman called out "ye loost". "No I'm just not from round here and so I've to keep checking the map" I kindly replied.

I stopped at every turning to check the map. My estimation of the atlas I bought in Newcastle had increased, now I thought of the scale and detail as indispensable.

Is this it! The North York Moors. I've got smudge on the lens.

The road went south through Ryedale and was average busy, though not too bad given that the road was across a blank space on the map with few alternatives through the middle of the North York Moors. The road gradually climbed up and then swept down to the town of Heimsley, were all the cars and motor-bikes that passed me were going, as when I got there, the central market square was full of visitors, browsing the market stalls, or sat on the steps around the monument in the middle; there were smalls streets off at the side with no shortage of places to eat. I opted for Fish and Chips, a dish Yorkshire supposedly invented. But I would find them a little heavy while cycling in the afternoon.

In heimsley, I was on the road to Scarborough, but it would've been quite a detour east; while directly south was the city of York. I decided to head for neither, instead, I followed B1257 south east, and by two o'clock Is passing through Hovering. I could say sleepy village, it seemed frozen in the early 1800s. With a ford through a stream and partly unpaved streets. I expected to see men with three corner hats strolling on the green.

On the other hand Malton, about ten miles further, was a busy town. I stopped at the Sainsbury's because I needed muesli plus refreshments. I was feeling tired after fish and chips at lunch and needed a rest. The supermarket was on a slope with steps down to road level, where I sat eating a Snickers bar and drinking a coke looking across at the Vauxhall dealers showroom across the road, while, darkness descended and big spots of rain pelted me, the last thing I needed. I heard a woman behind me in the door of the supermarket shout to someone inside, something "raining". But instantly it stopped and the sky lighten up again.

It was a busy street of cars and commercial vehicles queued at traffic lights on the way through Malton. Then I was back on the B1257 in the Yorkshire Wolds. I think Wolds mean low hills and there certain was plenty of short steep climbs and longer uphill drags; plus there was a lot of traffic. They all came at once, especially when I stopped to take a photo. I wanted off the road for the day and I didn't have to wait long. There was a narrow grove of woodland which ran off at a right-angle to the road and formed the boundary between two fields, and had a track along one side which I turned off the road and rode along; and as luck would have it, just around a bend in the grove which took me out of sight of the road, there was a square of short grass enclose by a hawthorn hedge on two sides. It was only half four but when I'd the tent up and a while later when I'd eaten and was inside uploading photos to the computer, the rain came on, drumming on the tent.

Expenditure total: £13.78

Co-opertive shop in Stokeley: £2.53

Fish and Chips in Heimsley: £5.40

Sainsburys Local in Malton: £5.85

Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 740 km (460 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	2
Comment on this entry	Comment	0