The Lyke Wake Walk (Part Two)

It was 3:30 a.m. on a warm summers morning, I'd only had approximately two hours sleep and was about to embark on one of the toughest walks that I had ever done, forty-two miles across the North Yorkshire Moors in twenty-four hours or less. I must be mad, but it's a challenge walk that I have always wanted to do and it's the only way to gain membership to the elite Lyke Wake Club.

The team consisting of myself and twelve other Staff members and Cadets from Bromley Volunteer Police Cadets were posing for photographs by the Lyke Wake stone at Scarth Wood Moor near Osmotherley before setting off on our epic adventure. At 3.44 a.m. we set off by torch light in high spirits following the road northwards before turning east and climbing gradually up onto the moor.

The first few miles of the path followed a series of short sharp ascents and descents along the ridge of the Cleveland Way with panoramic views across the plain towards the bright lights of Middlesborough. We were all feeling the burn in our calves and thighs and some of the less experienced walkers were finding the terrain tough going. The stunning views of the sunrise along the ridge more than compensated for the pain though.

After approximately ten miles we reached our first check point at about 8:00 a.m. However we were ahead of schedule  so had to sit around for a little while until our support vehicle made it's way to us with food and water. We had walked a quarter of the distance  and apart from a few aches we all felt in good shape. After eating our breakfast courtesy of the Youth Hostel and replenishing our water we crossed the road and ascended back up on to heather covered moor.

On this next section the going was much easier because we followed the path of an old railway track. Some of the younger members took advantage of the easy going and decided to speed march to a junction where our route split from the Cleveland Way. They would live to regret this decision later in the day. The sun was fully up now but fortunately there was a lot of cloud cover and a steady breeze blowing towards us. Part of the way along this track I hit the wall and we had only travelled approximately one third of the distance. With gritted teeth I started reciting my old walking chant (One two three four....I love the Marine Corps) over and over to myself and after an agonising couple of miles I got my second wind, thank God!

Several miles and some hours later we reached the Lion Inn Public House on Blakey Ridge where we were met by John and Ed our support team who walked out to greet us and lead us to the minibus. The aches and pains in our legs and bodies were now starting to kick in, after sitting down to eat our lunch we got up feeling like octogenarians. Anyway Ultreia (Onwards) as they say on the Camino, we hobbled off along the road which followed a drawn out hairpin bend along the ridge. Our legs soon loosened up but half an hour later after following the hairpin it seemed that we had hardly covered any distance as we looked back across the narrow valley towards the Inn.

At a junction in the road we headed off across country again into an area shown on the map as being several miles of a large boggy morass. This was going to be tough going I thought to myself. However the Spirits of the moor were on our side, while the rest of the country had suffered from intermittent rain in the previous weeks, up here in North Yorkshire it had stayed dry. Apart from the odd section of dark muddy bog the peat was dry and springy underfoot making it heaven to walk on. Morale was still high as we trudged into the next checkpoint for a well earned rest; some of the team took this opportunity to change their socks and footwear.