After our very brief foray into the Yorkshire Dales to visit Brimham Rocks, it was the turn of the North York Moors next! With our good friend Jo living in the village of Great Ayton, we based ourselves with her for three days to explore a tiny part of this beautiful region.

We didn’t have to go far. Walking out of her front door on our first afternoon we were immediately on peaceful paths through fields and woodland.

We were heading for Roseberry Topping – the ‘Matterhorn of Yorkshire’!  It’s such a distinctive shape, it looked so impressive on the approach.

It was a pretty steep climb up to the top, but the children sprang up the path like mountain goats, and we were soon at the cairn marking the summit!

The views were spectacular over the moors and out to the sea:

And we spent ages enjoying the panorama together.

Then it was a long walk down, which Sophie seemed to particularly enjoy!

With the weather still great, we pulled on our walking boots the next day too and headed out to pretty Saltburn-by-the-Sea for another hike. Jo led the way as we took a bit of a detour on the way to the beach to see more of the countryside. The children were thrilled to get up close and personal to a large herd of cows!

The entire herd slowly followed us as we quietly walked around the border of their field – it was a little disconcerting having so many eyes on us!

It wasn’t long before we turned back for the coast, the cliffs looking so dramatic jutting into the sea.

We scrambled down the brilliantly named Agar’s Gap (yes really!) to reach the stunning beach.

And then, of course, the children got completely soaked!

They had so much fun splashing in the waves, and we enjoyed the sea air and complete lack of other people on the huge beach!

Thankfully we had spare clothes, so we soon dried the children off and headed into the village for a scrummy pub lunch and a walk on the pier.

As we headed back to the car, we took a ride on the Saltburn Cliff Lift, the oldest water balanced funicular still in operation in the UK!  It was very quaint but I only managed to take a single picture.  The kids don’t look that impressed, but I did rather like the pretty stained glass!

Heading back to Great Ayton at the end of the day, we whiled away the last hours of sunshine paddling in the village stream and eating delicious ice cream from the famous Suggitts Ice shop.

We were all pretty tired, and a little bit sunburnt when we finally got back to Jo’s!  But after a good night’s sleep, we were all set for our next adventure – Whitby. We took so many photographs there, that deserves its own post, so more on that tomorrow…