SAMARITAN WAY DAY 1

Saturday 30/01/2010. Today sees me off on another anytime challenge walk round the North York Moors. My walk is called The Samaritan Way and supports the Middlesbrough branch of the Samaritans, a charity dedictated to assisting those contemplating suicide - a worthy cause and I'll be happy to send a small donation after doing the round. The route starts in the lovley town of Guisborough, famous for it's Priory, but I'm keen to get on with my hike so will leave a closer inspection for another visit. The route is given as 38 miles but "from bus-stop to bus-stop" I clocked 42 miles on my GPS, so obviously in a couple of places my route choice proved longer than essential, though I have to say route finding presented few problems and I was blessed by wonderful weather and perfect visibility which helped with navigation and in making the walk such a pleasure. I started at 12.15pm and completed eleven miles before pitching for my first wild camp on the moors south of Danby. The full route from Gisborough takes a clockwise direction to visit Commondale, Danby, Castelton, Rosedale Head, a short refuelling stop at The Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge, across Westerdale to Baysdale, up onto the Cleveland Way and north to drop down to Kildale (a grand tea stop) back up to Captian Cooks's monument, pass Roseberry Topping, surmount Highcliff Nab and finally back down through Gisborough Woods to the town and the finish of the walk. My walking time was 20hrs. 40mins. with two nights wild-camping. My full photo-diary can be seen on my Flickr page. My picture shows the town of Gisborough from the summit of Gisborough Woods.