Went to Cleveland to See About a Horse!

OK, I admit that the title might be a bit misleading, but I will be honest, they usually are. Besides, this one is close enough as the words Cleveland and Horse are involved, but not exactly as described. Now on to the story.

Earlier last week we made plans with our friends Erika and Ray to go for a walk on Sunday but we nearly didn’t go. When we woke up yesterday the mood wasn’t with us and we almost bailed in order to stay home, but better heads prevailed and we dragged our sorry asses out of the house. Erika and Ray picked us up shortly before 11am and we made a short, curse-filled journey (Erika is not the calmest driver I have met, perhaps quite the opposite) to the other side of town to meet up some other friends of theirs, Sandra and Laurie. Cindy and I hopped in the back of Laurie’s SUV with Homer and Sherman, her two beautiful dogs, where we were licked and whined at for the hour drive to our destination – The Cleveland Way Trail in the North York Moors.

We stepped out of the cars and into the sunshine, loaded ourselves and the dogs with our walking gear and proceeded to the trail. Within about ten minutes we were given a spectacular view of the countryside and it continued for the rest of the hike. Further along the trail we came upon a glider airfield and watched as a couple of them took off to the clear, blue sky. We continued along the busy trail with the dogs getting a lot of looks and attention due to the backpacks they were wearing, mainly to carry their own water, treats and No. 2s until they could be disposed properly. We then came across the highlight for part of the trail we were following, the Kilburn White Horse, although it just looks like white rocks when you come upon it on the path. You have to take the horribly uneven and difficult stairs down to the bottom of the hill in order to get a full view of it, and even still the head can not really be seen. You need to be quite a bit further away in order to take the entire horse in properly. The headless horse seen, we made the opposite journey up the stairs and then back to the car park (aka the place with ice cream!) With our mini-trek done and our ice cream lunch enjoyed, we hopped back in the cars and made our way home, this time a lot dryer and quieter as the dogs were tuckered out. Another beautiful day in the British countryside had.

Tags: Cleveland Way, moors, trail, Travel, walking, white horse, Yorkshire