Whitby to Castleton

19 miles (31km)

After leaving town and re-crossing the spectacular viaduct style railway bridge at the entrance to Whitby we turned onto a quiet country lane and headed inland again. The short trip to Castleton should have been easy, except for the UP, DOWN, UP, DOWN gradients the roads followed. It seemed like when we were not racing down 15 to 25% gradients we were crawling or pushing back up them. The sections across the top of the moors were quite special though, it's a bleak landscape mostly full of shaggy highland sheep and clumpy brown grass; there really isn't an equivalent in Australia.

We stopped in at the Moors National Park Center at Dalby where we had the most spectacular lunch (sandwiches and plowman's plate) in the sun before lying on the grass and watching the clouds float by, reading and listening to some music. Then the clouds started to threaten, reality beckoned and we moved on.



We pushed on the final few miles to Castleton and are settled in to our little B&B now for the night. It's an unusual place, shower in the basement through the conservatory, split level room (1st and 2nd floors) and perhaps 7ft ceilings through the whole place. A quiet lentil dinner in front of the world's tiniest TV.

No internet or phone here, so this post is coming to you via our delayed telecast service.