I parked in the lay-by by the phone box at Kildale then headed up the hill past Little Kildale to Warren Farm. From here a right of way leads downhill through a field to the old mine chimney in Leven Vale. “Bull in Field” says a sign on the gate of said field, alongside a little iconic representation of bovine ferocity. There was too and I didn’t care for the way that beast was looking at me as I proceeded nervously down sticking close to the fence just in case. All was well and on I went over the top of Kildale Moor and down into Baysdale where I turned left and headed east along a track. The bell heather was coming into bloom and the whole dale was alive with the furious activity of thousands of bees. At the road I stopped for a chat with a couple of friendly cyclists on a day out from Middlesbrough then south over the ford (almost dry) at Hob Hole, up the steep hill on the other side and right on the path crossing Hograh Moor. This is more or less Walk 19 from Dillon’s North York Moors book but I deviated here to visit the trig point about a Kilometer off to the south, quite rough walking on pathless ground.
Coming down the hill past Thorntree House I saw a couple approaching on the track with some dogs in tow. As they got close I saw there were in fact an awful lot of dogs in tow, perhaps 15 or so, all off the leash and, when they a saw me approaching, charged straight at me, baying and howling. Some were quite small and not so alarming. Some were rather large. It was all a little intimidating. But they didn’t eat me, just leapt about around me. At Baysdale Abbey, which is not an abbey, just a big house were an abbey once stood, there were lots of cars parked and people sunning themselves in the garden. It’s a holiday let and must be doing OK as the road beyond was recently resurfaced. (The last couple of miles from here retraced my steps from the first couple of miles of walk 17.) As I reached the top of the hill above Baysdale Farm I heard some distant thunder rumbling. Some very dramatic forbidding clouds were forming off to my west. So I made haste back to the village hoping to make it back before all hell broke loose. Which I did. Just about. Others were less fortunate. It had been a day of stormy weather after a big heatwave the preceding week and the radio, as I drove home, brought news of two walkers killed by lightning on Pen-y-Fan.
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