Another route starting at the Lordstones Country Park, based on the start of the smaller Lordstones loop, anticlockwise, but this time following the Cleveland Way a lot further along the hilltops from Carlton Bank.
Down through some woodland and fields turning back towards Lordstones. The Southernmost point of the route heading North from Fog Close was a bracken-filled nightmare of exhaustion. I was sooo happy to see Holey Moor and all its heather.
Leave the car park, heading towards the car park road entrance, cross the road and follow the Cleveland Way signs to the top of Carlton Bank. This is the view from near the top, looking back over to Lordstones Country Park in the trees below and Rosey in the far distance.
Another view from the top, this time across the valley, showing the Cleveland Way heading up to the peaks and eventually the Wainstones (covered in another hike). Also if you look very closely a horizontal track which Imade a note of and covered in the loop hike.
Continue along the top of the hill following the Cleveland Way, a nice, easy stone path through the heather.
This pic shows how you follow the hilltop for a couple of miles.
A Christmas tree, will make a note of that for early December.
Keep following the stone path through the heather.
Past a Bronze age burial mound.
The Cleveland Way then heads downhill into some Woods.
It's at this point that the path hits a tarmac road at Huthwaite Green and we turn left, following the road and leaving the Cleveland Way. A few fields are visible through the hedgerows.
After around a mile, where the road turn left at 90 degrees we take the path to the left, past Fog Close. This is the view from that path along the valley. A tiny vertical line on the horizon in the middle of this pic below, Bilsdale TV mast in the distance (I did a walk there: Bilsdale Expedition).
Note to self, don't walk this area in August, the bracken is 6 foot tall and a nightmare to get through. It was exhausting, not helped by the August temps but I soldiered on through the undergrowth for perhaps a half mile.
Finally!...a path! I was so happy to get to this point. It was then a quite easy trek along the path/track, across the moors.
On top of Holey Mooor, looking back at the route I'd taken, it doesn't look as overgrown from this distance.
Continue along the trach, heading north back towards Lordstones.
More heather...and Christmas trees.
The final part of the track is quite level as you rejoin the Cleveland Way and follow it back to the car park. This is one final pic of the route form the bottom of the hill. The horizontal track on the other side of the valley I spotted earlier was easier to see.
Lordstones routes: