Weather Experience

I am sitting in the Whitby Brewery Tap the afternoon before when I realised the error of my ways. I haven’t looked at the weather forecast before, but now its full horror is laid bare. Thursday will be a day of unceasing double raindrops and winds over 40mph, highlighted in black to stress the impending dreadfulness. My heart sinks. It is a sunny afternoon and I have left two routes to walk and check the following day, a decision that looks very short-sighted now. By the time I walk back to my van a couple of hours later, rain swirls around the gloomy ruins of Whitby Abbey and I shelter behind its high perimeter wall, having failed to bring a waterproof out. The rain and wind will barely cease for the next 36 hours as a storm lashes in off the North Sea and batters the Yorkshire coast.

It is before 9am when I venture forth into the elements, layered up in new waterproofs that are being given an early test of their credentials. After just a few hundred metres, I take shelter in Lythe Church, where a remarkable collection of Viking graves are laid out in a fine exhibition in the nave. I read every word of the display, desperate to stay a little longer, before finally descending the fields towards the sea. The sheep have hunkered down in the lee of an old hedgeline and the wind buffets me violently at every step while sporadic raindrops sting my face. Down by the shore the waves crash into the grey alum-scarred cliffs and the sea is a whorling mass of white surf as far as I can see (which is not that far, nearby Sandsend reduced to a grey smudge). Instead the grey of sky and sea merges and the rain quickly forces me to turn away.

For three miles I walk with the sea at my back as the rain ups its intensity, thudding against my coat all the way along the high cliffs past Seaveybog and Kettleness. Throughout I look to the horizon, in awe of the sea. There is never a dull moment when the sea is at hand, but that is particularly true on a day like this. Ahead the houses of Runswick Bay huddle in a corner of the broad arc of beach. Suddenly the compactness of Robin Hood’s Bay, Staithes and Runswick Bay makes complete sense as the cottages cling together on the rocks for survival.

I have to leave the coast eventually though and climb the barren fields above Kettleness. With little shelter up here, I am exposed to the full force of the wind, knocked backwards with every other step as I stoop low into its teeth. I want to look out for the Bronze Age barrows and other prehistoric sites that are scattered across these fields, but I can barely look up for a second until I reach the shelter of a hedge. There I rummage for a banana in my bag and try to scrawl notes on the map on my phone, before moving off. Water flows across the surface of the land at every turn, creating broad streams where no bed exists. My feet are quickly soaked as I splash on, but once you are wet there is a freedom in knowing it can get no worse, so I plod on through each growing rivulet.

It is a lovely walk though – apart from the one ploughed field before East Barnby where my boots sink several inches into the soil with each step – and I am soon bounding along a beautiful band of broadleaf trees back into Lythe, blessing their shelter and autumnal colours. I collapse soggily into my seat and devour my lunch instantly, having barely paused let alone sat down in the preceding ten miles. If only I didn’t have to do it all again this afternoon…

After the half hour drive through Whitby and over the edge of the North York Moors, I drop into the village of Cloughton and ready myself for round two. Everything I’m wearing is soaked, chilling me to the bone, but after a few minutes walking I start to warm up and appreciate the forest around me. The trees swirl and crack above, sheltering me from the worst of the elements as the route heads deep into Cloughton Woods. Mostly composed of coniferous plantations, I squelch along the soggy path as the trees close in until it is just me, the moss and the roots cocooned by thick spruce and a spongy mat of needles. As I drop into a hollow, the ground all around me is under several feet of water and the trees claw from it like those of a rainforest, but the path tiptoes carefully through the swamp.

Over the road I descend into the beautiful broadleaves of Hayburn Wyke Woods, whose steep slopes lead down to a series of streams whose sound greets me before I see their swollen torrents. I already knew the two fords across the becks would likely be impassable, so it was a relief that the surging brown water is so formidable that there is no temptation to remove my boots and wade across. Instead I head off down the stream’s bank, hoping to make it across the rough slopes to the next bridge. After a few yards though I am drawn to one of a handful of trees that has collapsed across the larger stream – is this crossable? Before I have much time to think, I am on my knees crawling across what feels like a pretty solid trunk. Just don’t look down at the foaming water below. The tree forks into two thinner branches that lead across the last couple of metres so, balancing between the two, I make a leap for the bank. I land with relief on solid ground, before looking back at the folly I have just crossed.

The stream cascades loudly down through the gorge to the coast and the path follows uncertainly alongside until it drops down steeply to the amphitheatre that holds Hayburn Wyke Waterfall. The roar of both sea and waterfall rises to meet me, while the wind whorls through the trees all around. My heart leaps at the excitement of the visceral power of nature all around me as I gambol down to cross the bridge at the foot of the stream and pick my way down the side of the waterfall to the beach. Hayburn Wyke is a lovely spot on a sunny day, but the waterfall has always been a thin trickle that disappears quietly into the cove on my previous visits. Today it is a grey-brown wall thundering powerfully onto the rocky shore before streaming across a wide section of the beach. I sit down for a rest and look out to sea at an angry line of white crests that churn the whole bay into a broiling cauldron. The noise is deafening on all sides and I barely notice that the rain is still driving against me. I don’t want to miss any of this for the world and can’t believe I have it all to myself.

When I finally drag my cold limbs away from the shore, I climb through the elegantly twisted oaks above to walk high above the cliffs round to Cloughton Wyke, where on a good day you can visit salt-pans cut into the wavecut platform. Today I plough on for the village and the dry of the van. But it is still not warm enough, so I head for Scarborough mere minutes before the A165 would be closed for the flooding that spreads all the way across the road. Parking outside the North Riding high on the cliffs above North Bay, I have to fight valiantly to open the van door against the wind and scuttle inside to find it nearly empty. The weather is so vile that no-one is even venturing out to the pub. I haven’t seen a single person walking, even out with their dog, the whole day and I feel like I’d been granted a special pass to enjoy this experience. The lesson I guess is not to let the weather put you off, you might just enjoy it more – and I guarantee that pint will taste better afterwards!

Soundtrack

The Prodigy – Weather Experience

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yinw2zjVm8)