Here you can see the report from our latest walk and also some of the pictures that were taken.

Unless otherwise stated, report by Paul Coates and pictures by Keith Bilton.

Today's pictures by COLIN

Thursday 1st. January 2009

North Cave, Finkle Street, Old Railway, A63, Cave Common Farm, Mill Beck, Mill Farms, Ruffham Field, Ellerker, Field Path, Lane, Brantingham (The Triton), Brantingham Dale, Woodale Farm, Mount Airy Farm, Great Wold Plantation, Little Wold Plantation, Lane, Everthorpe, Lane, Sports Field, North Cave(12 miles).

Cloudy & cold

Paul, Col, John, Paul Craggs, Stu.

Paul

Our first walk of the year and you don't get much closer to the beginning of the year than January 1st. Only five of us out today with everyone else no doubt sleeping off varying degrees of hangover. Paul immediately broke one of his new year's resolutions by driving round the Swiss Cottage pub car park twice in a thinly disguised attempt at boosting his petrol money. His claim that it was dark and he couldn't find the exit was laughingly dismissed by John & Col.

We were out the car and threading our way through a very quiet North Cave village by 0830. However it took us some time to locate the path as it appears that a small housing estate has been built over the original start point.

early risers

We eventually found the path between two houses down Finkle Street.

After that there were more way markers on gateposts than you could shake one of Craggsy's many walking sticks at. One of these many way markers would have been more helpful on the main road pointing the way down Finkle Street.

Our route took us across the A63 close by the Little Chef restaurant. On a normal weekday we would have been dodging the speeding traffic along this busy route into Hull, but today neither a truck, car nor X62 was in sight as we just ambled across the dual carriageway, even posing for a photograph in the fast lane.

Close to Ellerker village we came across an abandoned farm trailer which we agreed would make a good place to sit upon for our morning break.

As soon as we got settled and scoffing a tractor came trundling by. We did think that our adopted trailer was about to be hitched up to the tractor and towed off to some far flung corner of the farm. Maybe the farmer had misgivings about the combined weight of walkers on the back of the trailer as he just drove past giving us a combination of a suspicious look and a cheery wave and in return we gave a sigh of relief.

Once through Ellerker village we walked alongside a field of bamboo. This seemed a strange crop to come across in the wilds of East Yorkshire although we never saw any panda bears.

Looking for pandas

Although the first half of this walk was around 7 miles long we still managed to get to the pub early. Must be all those absent today who normally hold us back. As we approached The Triton we thought it was already open judging by the number of cars in the car park. However it turned out they had been left there after the previous nights New Year celebrations. We were first through the door at 1145, but had we arrived after 1230 we'd have been lucky to find a seat such were the number of hungry diners coming through the door.

The pub was welcoming and the staff friendly. After 2 rounds of drinks, plus deductions for the petrol, we were quite surprised to each receive £4.40 back. Could this be due to John being in charge of the kitty? There seemed to be numerous attempts at calculating what should, or should not, be in the kitty with John retrieving £1 coins and a £5 note from various pockets. His maths seemed very suspect and we were left wondering how late the EYMS accountants must have to work to sort out his shorts & over's after he's been on the road. One school of thought is that he should leave the administration of the kitty to the professionals (i.e. Chancellor Craggs), but on the other hand with such a big payout we are quite happy to leave him to it.

We had spent the morning walking on the flatlands between the Humber and The Wolds, but the second half provided us with a few hills. As we steadily climbed up Brantingham Dale past All Saints Church Paul's mobile received an incoming call from our absent leader Bob. He was calling from his Christmas hideout in Barnard Castle just to check on his boys and to wish us a happy new year.

Up past Mount Airy Farm we came upon East Yorkshire's version of Area 51. There were a number of canvas buildings housing various light aircraft and who knows what else. Alternatively this could have been the hitherto unknown South Cave International Airport. The tattered and torn wind sock looked well past its use by date as it lay limp atop the flagpole. In fact from a distance it could have been mistaken for one of Paul Craggs work shirts, except on closer inspection it wasn't held together with a Stagecoach tie. At one point on our trek along the perimeter of this secret airfield a 4x4 came bouncing towards us. Was this the airfield security man coming to challenge our right to be here? It just turned out to be a bloke in a flat cap going somewhere in a hurry.

We did plan to have our afternoon break sat on the bench on the way up to Little Wold. When we arrived there we found a family of four had already claimed the seat. This included a little urchin waving a big stick around in a threatening manner. This would normally induce a swift kick up the rear but as his mother and grandmother were in the vicinity we decided to retreat instead. Plus he was all of 4 years old and thus likely to chase us off wielding his oversize twig. So we found a convenient fallen tree nearby and perched there. Bloody kids.

We finished the walk along the quiet lane through Everthorpe village.

John munching

We were back at the car just after 3 and all agreed it had been a good day out. A walk to be repeated at some future date, but hopefully with more of us there to enjoy it.