Hiking the Cleveland Way | White Horse to Helmsley

Helmsley, England

Travelling overland through England means we’ve been retracing our steps a little bit. Coupled with the fact that we’re taking the opportunity to re-stay with CouchSurfing-hosts-turned-friends means that we’re hitting up some familiar territory again. After exploring Northumberland, we headed south to Newcastle and had a great few days with our friend again. From there we headed into the North York Moors and based ourselves in the small town of Helmsley for a few days. You may remember our experience hiking the Cleveland Way from Robin Hood’s Bay to Whitby back in August. Well it turns out that the Cleveland way also intersects Helmsley – so I bet you can guess what we did!

Hiking the Cleveland Way (Again) | White Horse to Helmsley

We got a lift from a fellow hostel-mate from Helmsley out to Sutton Bank. We started our day by hiking out to the Kilburn White Horse. The views from the trail aren’t great, but from up above you can see the turf-cut figure on the hillside. A funny thing we’ve learned about Britain is that they like to claim that certain places are ‘the most –”, or “the biggest –”, etc. This was demonstrated at White Horse. This work of art is “the most northerly turf-cut figure in Britain”. I personally did not know there was such a large market for turf-cut figures in Britain, but it just goes to show you learn something new every day! (And that Brits are a wee bit quirky!).

The views along the trail at Sutton Bank are pretty phenomenal. They reminded me of hiking along the escarpment back in Ontario. The cliffs gave way to sprawling fields and endless sky. The sky was perfectly clear except for the occasional glider or airplane soaring by.

Gliders

The trail along Sutton Bank is right beside the Yorkshire Gliding Club. Apparently the updrafts from the cliffs provide excellent gliding conditions. While we were there, we must have seen close to 10 planes towing gliders take off! Once gliding height is reached, the tow rope is disconnected and the gliders make use of various wind patterns to stay aloft for several hours!

Funnily enough, we got a ride hitchhiking the following day from a rare female glider pilot. She shared so many fascinating details about gliding. Such as, gliders weigh around 500kgs, but those with engines can weigh up to 1 tonne. Most flights are between 30-60 minutes, but in order to obtain your glider pilot license, you must fly for five hours! In a male-dominated sport, it was so amazing to learn from Sue and her years of experience.

Autumn on the Trail

We eventually tore ourselves away from watching the planes and gliders take off, and continued hiking the Cleveland Way towards Helmsley. We hiked through fields and forests and were totally enamoured with the amazing autumn colours. Just a little ways outside Helmsley is the Rievaulx Abbey. We didn’t go in, but the views of the structure in ruins were very impressive from the road side.

Just under four hours 16km later, we finally returned to Helmsley and had ourselves a lazy afternoon in the hostel. The main square in Helmsley is full of quaint old buildings that are oozing with charm. I even posted up one morning with my sketchbook in an attempt to capture the beauty of this small town.

I really enjoyed hiking the Cleveland Way (again). Since we don’t travel with a tent and sleeping bags/camping gear, I like that we’re able to do small portions of long distance hikes. Similar to when we hiked the first and last bits of the Pennine Way, hiking the Cleveland Way gave us a small taste of this impressive trail which was enough to convince us to (highly) recommend it to others! And maybe even return one day to hike the full thing ourselves!

Have you ever been gliding? What’s the quirkiest attraction you’ve ever seen?

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