Staithes

I walked down the steep road into Staithes. The houses are remarkably small. It is almost like a village of doll's houses. Judging by the lack of lights that were on, I'd guess a lot of them were holiday houses. It is undeniably pretty though and it was unusual to have the main street to myself. Normally, it is crowded with tourists from Spring to Autumn. Down on the front the a couple of dog walkers were out and (presumably) the landlord of the Cod & Lobster was hosing down his outside drinking area. I'm not sure whether this was to remove any deposits from the dogs or just to wash away any trace of tourist. 'Morning. Best time of day this. Before it gets busy' a dog walker said to me. I agreed, although I wished there'd been a bit more light for the photos. I stood for a while and admired Cowbar Nab, a massive wedge shaped lump of rock that juts out along the harbour to the north. My route to Boulby was over there and so I started making my way in that direction. A footbridge brought me to the other side of Staithes Beck and then I started the  ascent of the unfeasibly steep road out of the ravine. The OS map says that the houses around here are in Cowbar and I wondered if the beck defined the boundary of each village. Once I reached the top of the road, I lost the protection of the cliffs and the strong wind blasted me again. The day could turn out to be quite interesting if it was blowing even harder at the top of Boulby cliffs. 

Boulby Mine

I followed an old tarmac road away from Cowbar. Half a mile away from the village a wooden fence went across the road and a new track was diverted inland. Looking over the fence it was easy to see why; a landslip had taken away the road and now there was just fresh air where there should have been tarmac. I hoped nobody had been driving along it when it happened. I was on the Cleveland Way, as well as the England Coast Path, or the King Charles III Path as Royalists now want to call it. I pity all those volunteers who have put up those England Coast Path fingerposts only to find somebody had the bright idea of changing the name. On recent walks, I'd already come across some new fingerposts that had the King Charles III Path inscription on it.

There seemed to be a fellow sitting down on a bench further along the path. It seemed odd that somebody was sitting around on such a cold day. As I got closer there seemed to be a bit of a ghostly air about him. When I was a few yards away, the reason suddenly became clear. It was a statue of somebody sat on a bench. Not any old picnic bench either. The top of the bench had a lovely metal information board that told you everything you wanted to know about the nearby Boulby mine. The metal statue was of a miner and there was a control console next to him. Apparently the miners have these picnic tables down in the mines. They are know as baiting tables and are used for sitting around to discuss work, as well as having their lunch (the bait). A map showed the extent of the 630 miles of the mine's tunnels. They extended as far as Skinningrove to the north down to Runswick Bay to the south. Some of the tunnels also went 4.5 miles out to sea. The scale of the industry is hard to comprehend. It is the second deepest mine in Europe and is also used by physicists to investigate Dark Matter, that unknown natural feature that makes up most of our universe. The information board encouraged me to sit down and take bait with the miner. It was far too cold though and to be honest, he didn't seem much of a conversationalist. 

Boulby Cliffs

A rough country road started taking me past some isolated houses. I wondered how long it would be before these suffered the same fate as the disappearing road I'd seen earlier. At the last house, the road turned into a footpath and a sign warned that I should be careful since it ran along the cliff edge. I was certainly taking care since it had snowed in the area and ice still remained on the path. Not only that, the strong wind was blowing me towards the cliff edge. I was quite glad when the path started going steeply uphill alongside the stone wall of a field. It was actually quite tricky to ascend with the ice. I wouldn't fancy making my way down here and I decided I might have a route-rethink at the top for my return journey. Once I reached the top, the path along the top of the cliff was wide and quite safe, although still very icy. 

There was a trig point in a field at the highest point. It's a shame that there isn't something more significant. There was an information board about 200 to 300 metres further along from the top. I remembered this from last time. Writing had been engraved on to a metal sheet and it'd been so weathered that unless you are into wax rubbing, there wasn't a chance of reading it. I wandered over anyway to see if it had been replaced with something readable. It hadn't. 

I had to make a decision now about my return journey. I didn't fancy going down that steep luge like section. Looking at my OS map I settled for a footpath that went inland, near to the trig, and then on to a country lane. I could then follow this country lane back towards Staithes and pick up my outward journey path later on. 

Return

The country lane was actually quite icy, had spilt diesel on it, and was very steep in sections too. At least I wouldn't slip, toboggan down a luge and then ski jump off a cliff into oblivion. I shuffled down the road and I was soon back on the Cleveland Way again. I nearly jumped out of my skin at one point when I heard a sloshing noise almost immediately behind me. I thought it was a car approaching through the ice. I turned around and was surprised to find that it was just some polythene that had been caught in some barbed wire and was flapping in the wind. 

There were a few more people about as I made my way down that steep road at Cowbar. It must only have been a dozen or so in total though. How different this place is in summer. I dragged my feet back up the road in Staithes to the Bank Top carpark. Looking northwards, it still looked bleak on Boulby Cliffs. 

Well, I plugged that Staithes-Boulby Cliffs hole on my Northeast England Coast Path Venture. The section had been bugging me for quite a while. At least it is done now. It had only taken 3 hours but I seemed to have managed to cram a lot into the morning. Staithes and Cowbar are worth pottering around and the views from Boulby Cliffs are astounding. I'd have to rate the Boulby Miner sculpture as one of the most useful and informative artworks that I've come across. Even if it was a bit spooky.