If you read my post on fossil-hunting in the North York Moors (4 August 2017), you will know that we found a rather large unindentified fossil in a rock. We contacted the Natural History Museum via the NaturePlus forum on their website and they helpfully identified it for us as a piece of fossil wood. Pretty cool (although secretly I was hoping it was a dinosaur bone!). Our thanks go to DrT and Colin for their help.
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![]() A walk around Danby We started our second day in the North York Moors (the last day in July) with another Making Tracks child-led walk. Our kids are smart and enthusiastic but they still need a lot of practice paying attention to where they are, looking out for signs, reading ahead in the instructions and generally remembering that they are supposed to be in charge! We are going on so many walks this year that it seems a good time to get them practising leading. This time we went to Danby in North Yorkshire and started our walk at the Moors National Park Centre. This is a fabulous visitor centre with carpark, shop, tearoom, playground and toilets (woo hoo!). A great place to start and finish your walk. On the day that we were there, there were lawn games and other activities going on, and it seemed like a lovely place to hang out (although we didn't have time that day - we had a date with cake in Lealholm in the afternoon). ![]() Our little walk took us past some cool wooden animal sculptures and the playground before heading out over lush green fields towards Danby Castle. It was one of those drizzly summer days, where it's warm but midly wet and you're never quite sure if your waterproofs should be on or off. Eve, having forgotten her waterproof, threw on the emergency poncho that she carries in her bag - the disposable type sold to tourists that looks like a massive bin bag with holes for your arms and head. I'm not entirely sure how effective it was but she seemed happy enough, even if it did look a bit impractical to me! Despite the kids (predictably) forgetting that they were leading and thus missing our turn off at a couple of points, we made it back to Danby safely, albeit a little later in the day than we had originally anticipated. We hurried straight off to Lealholm for a late lunch and to check out the North York Moors' claim to be Britain's Capital of Cake. The Capital of Cake
One of our favourite activities as a family is to check out local tearooms. We like tea, scones, puddings, cake...so we were quite excited to read about the Capital of Cake campaign run by the North York Moors Tourism Network. Basically, the idea is to eat lots and lots of cake! There are 50+ types on the Capital of Cake website, along with suggested places to eat them. (Note: Jay's not actually a fan of cake per se - he's more of a savoury person - but he's perpetually hungry and is on board with the concept of going anywhere that serves food.) So, we used the website to pick a tearoom that was broadly in the right location and that had good reviews on TripAdvisor. We chose the Shepherds Hall Tea Rooms & Craft Gallery and had a tasty jacket potato lunch followed by Hot Chocolate Fudge Cake (for Eve and me). I can't seem to access my photos of that day at the moment thanks to a dodgy internet connection (grrr!) so check out my tweet instead (see here). Unfortunately, we had to head straight off for Northumberland afterwards so no time to try the other 49 types of cake. Maybe next time! (One day we hope to do a pudding tour of the UK - where we visit the birthplace of puddings: Bakewell, Eccles, Cartmel (for sticky toffee pudding)... Mmm! We may have to cycle around to these places in order to burn off all the calories! We are on our journey around the UK: driving to Scotland via the North York Moors and Northumberland National Park, ferrying across to Northern Ireland, then returning home via the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales. First stop, North York Moors. (Well, actually, we stopped en-route in Cambridge to look for an Articuno, but I don't think that counts in this context!) As usual, we wanted to experience something that makes this National Park special and, given its name, a hike across the moors seemed obvious - but perhaps a little too obvious? When planning this trip, I ideally wanted us to discover something new, something that we didn't already know about. So, I did a little research and found out that...the Yorkshire coast is one of the best places in the UK for fossil hunting! As one of Simon's childhood hobbies, it seemed a no-brainer as our main activity for this National Park. The UK Fossils website has a great summary of the best fossil-hunting locations and, based on its advice, we decided to visit Staithes, and hike from Runswick Bay to Kettleness. Here's some of the 'treasure' that we found: Staithes Kettleness I have to admit, we found much cooler stuff than I thought we would. Simon's taken me fossil-hunting before and it's never been a terribly thrilling experience as finds have been few and far between. This time, though, there was an abundance of fossils and it was really quite exciting. Like a treasure hunt! We couldn't identify everything that we found but the Natural History Museum in London can help with that. They have a helpful website onto which you can upload photographs of your finds and ask their scientists for help in identifying them. So, our first day in the North York Moors was different to anything else we've done in the National Parks and very memorable. It was helped by the fact that we reached Kettleness by clambering over a lot of large boulders which Jay loved. There is great joy in seeing the kids relish in something as simple as that - it really brings home the phrase 'Nature's playground'!
A final note of warning, if you plan to go fossil-hunting at either of these locations: Warning 1: Keep well away from the cliff faces. At both Staithes and Kettleness, we witnessed the cliff sides crumbling substantially and without warning. The reason we hiked to Kettleness from Runswick Bay was because access to Kettleness from the clifftop has crumbled away and it's now too dangerous to walk down from up there. Warning 2: If you plan to walk to Kettleness from Runswick Bay, check out tide times beforehand and ensure you return before high tide cuts you off. May, our blue tit Travel Bug, flew up to Yorkshire earlier this month and visited a couple of geocaches here before landing in the North York Moors National Park yesterday. Hurrah! She has now visited three National Parks (against our seven).
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