Beck Hole (Day 5 part 2)

Ever since I'd heard about them in School I'd always wanted to see a real Roman road. I'd been taught that the Romans just pointed towards where they wanted to go and started building, chopping the tops off mountains and building bridges and embankments across valleys, so that their roads would be the shortest route from source to destination. The idea had really captured my imagination, so I was pleased to see the indication 'roman road' on the map between the bridleway and Beck hole.

And it was straight.

Maybe I could have been disappointed - it was an ordinary narrow tarmac'd road, nothing remarkable about it, except perhaps the masses of bright purple heather lining both sides, but I was really pleased that I'd finally got to ride on a real live roman road.

Enough nostalgia. We picked a track that looked as if it was heading in the right direction and plunged into a wood. It turned out to be a really really good trail with exceptionally steep downhill and interesting twists and turns. I thought it'd soon level out after such a good start, but it just kept going down and down through the woods, challenging, but very rideable. We finally popped out from behind a house right in the middle of the hamlet-that-could-be-a-hornby-model of Beck Hole.

At first it looked as if there was nowhere to eat, but when we crossed the bridge, we discovered the Birch Hall Inn.

After a lunch of sandwiches made with home made bread, eaten in scorching sunshine outside the inn, Martin bought us sweets from the wee shop next door. We looked at the map and decided to try taking the path to Goathland and heading up out the road.

As with every other road ot of Beck Hole and Goathland, this one started with a 25% gradient, and climbed 200m within 2km. On this trip I discovered that Martin likes to use mantras and repetition to get through difficulties. On this climb it was "This is the Last Hill" Actually, he used that mantra on the previous uphill - and the next one too.

It was hard work, but we were buoyed by the fact that we were pretty sure we'd be able to see the sea when we got to the top.