North Yorkshire Moors
A month after the bogginess of mid-Wales, Matty gathered a few folk up in York for a night of adventure talks. We heard Athena talk about her journey to setting up the Ramble Guides. Rose and Seb described the process of converting Vincent, their Vauxhall Movano, into their new home and spending their first year living in him around the city of York as they saved money before heading off into Europe. Danny recounted tales from his 18 month ride around South America, Matty himself talked about bike adventures in Australia and we watched Headwind Haters - the film of an epic surf - bike trip to the Western Isles by the amazing Chris McClean.
The following morning, we headed north to Kirkybymoorside on the southern edge of the North York Moors, left our cars and pedalled slowly uphill, Matty guiding us on a route he'd put together that would see us crossing to the north side of the moors to a camping barn for the night, and returning the following day.
A beautiful morning gave way to slightly chillier air as we climbed, and pretty soon we were making tracks in the snow.
I might have been initially a little skeptical of the need for a camping barn, but Matty had it nailed - without the barn we would all have been antisocially huddled in our sleeping bags trying to keep warm. Instead, we cooked, drank whisky, ate digestives dunked in whisky and tried to figure out what it was that we were doing that kept killing the power...
The following morning we had a rather unforgiving hill to climb before hitting the snow and ice again.
We crunched and splashed through the fog-hidden trails until we hit the refuge of a pub complete with a massive Sunday roast and many friendly dogs, from where we were pretty reluctant to leave!
Such a great weekend and lovely bunch of people. Matty and his girlfriend Clare have since had the most epic year riding in Norway, Spain, Nepal and Tasmania, and are now based in New Zealand. Danny took a challenging bike trip across Iceland, Athena has gone on to document her outdoor adventures beautifully on Wild and Words, Rose and Seb are travelling through Spain in Vincent and Chris Maclean continues to astound with his still and moving images. Go check them all out!
