Recalling my best hiking and sketching memories of 2017
Ice-cream, chips and amusement arcades cheek by jowl with hidden heritage. Waiting for buses, trains and planes. Manchester airport mayhem. Joining the Front Row Forwards
A damp day in Whitby, chasing a wild goose and sketching, sketching, sketching.
Whitby kippers, wet cliffs, a mad bull, hi-viz kids and happy holiday memories. The Ends of the Earth and an ending for me too.
I hike on down the coast, cross the sands, pass Hob Holes, clamber up a ravine and see a different side of Whitby.
Another sad memorial, Kittiwakes and Fulmars, Alfred the Great, the highest cliffs in England, a personal milestone and getting into tangles in a WW1 billet.
Up the Topping and under the viaduct. From moors and scarps to suburbs and the sea. Sleeping in the Nineteenth Century.
Bleak moorland, a chill wind and never ending tracks. Ancient boundary stones and tumuli. Grouse with their chicks who don’t yet know about the Glorious Twelfth. Deep thought, a sad memorial, leaving a wish and enjoying a warm tomb.
A site of miracles, paved ways up and over switchback climbs, more moors and a night at the Wainstones.
A day of contrasts. Immense views, soft sheep pasture, shady forest tracks, unforgiving, sun-baked moorland, a punishing final climb and cool village alleyways.