Day Four - Homeward bound

Being woken by the sound of rain on canvas is almost never a good thing - 6.20am and I was well awake. It wasn't supposed to be raining! Mojo was pacing around his field and I couldn't see any point in hanging around, so after breakfast for Mojo and a quick cup of coffee for me (thanks to Sheila and John, who'd put us up at their farm campsite, for that!) we were packed up and off back down the steep drive towards Rievaulx. The lanes were empty and the trees turning red and gold with early autumn, making for a peaceful walk despite the drizzle. 

We turned up the bridleway, past an old sawmill, and followed a curving  track uphill to Claythwaite Rigg. Leaving the surfaced track, the bridleway turned into an overgrown gully, so we clambered up to the field edge and slogged on through the wet grass, rewarded at the top with beautiful (if soggy) views of the valley. 

Across the main road and into the woods, with morning mist still hanging over the trees. We followed a horse-track to pick up the forestry road, walking past stacks of timber waiting to be moved. The woods on either side had huge gouges cut into the earth by the logging machinery, and the track was scattered with bark.

Coming out of the woods we walked through the middle of a huge potato farm, with walls of crates the height of a house on one side of the new concrete drive.

The drive turned into a lane, past fields chocolate brown with rain, before bringing us out on the main road to Helmsley. Crossing the road we passed St Chad's, Sproxton, but there was no way to get Mojo up the steps - terribly inconsiderate design on the part of George Gilbert Scott Jnr and Temple Moore, the architects who moved the church here in 1879 from its original location a mile away. They really should've thought about people who might want to take their horses to church!

Further on down the village we made a quick stop at a picnic bench outside the village hall for me to put clean dry socks on my soaked feet. Where the two roads (bridleways) diverged (almost) in a wood outside the village, they looked pretty much equally travelled, so we took the left hand one because it went where we wanted to go....

Past a yellow field, through a fish farm (Mojo quite disturbed by the pumps and nets and concrete ponds and General Weirdness), under the railway, and then onto the Harome - Helmsley road for twenty minutes.

Once on the main road into Helmsley, we passed a group of green bow top wagons parked up on the verge, smoke from the chimneys blowing into the drizzle, and paused briefly to exchange greetings and a mild complaint about the weather with two men on the way back from collecting more firewood.

Helmsley was busy as always, so we alternated between the road (parked cars on both sides) and the wide verge. A quick lap of the Market Square and we headed round to the back gate of All Saints church, where we met George, Mel, my husband Iain, and our dog. After a round of greetings and a quick photo, Mojo falling asleep outside the church gate, it was on to the Vicarage for a cup of coffee and turning the trailer round to take us home. 

Having done a bit of kit sorting and eaten generous dinners all round I'm off to bed. The last few days have been a real privilege, but I'll have to think more on that in the morning when I'm more capable of coherent thought!