Roseberry Topping and its wonderful views is the fifth instalment of my Social Distancing Walks blog series. If you’re ever near North Yorkshire, this is why you should climb the hill.
Whether the different walks I’ve been taking inspired my mum, or she fancied returning to a place she hadn’t been for years, she drove us to Roseberry Topping for the afternoon.
The last time I was there was July 2019 as part of my boyfriend’s birthday treat I had planned. He had never been before; I wish I had blogged this.
This time, myself and my mum took a risk because it was forecast to rain. We just hoped the heavens would avoid opening until we made it back to the car.
Roseberry Topping is a fairly large hill in North Yorkshire, near Great Ayton. A climb to the top leads to a jagged cliff edge with views across the Tees Valley. Its shape was caused by a geological fault and a mining collapse in 1912. Below, there are lots of woodland walks. Admittedly, I’ve got lost on a few of those routes in the past. But, this time we stuck to the uphill route to the top.
The Climb
I always forget how steep the first lot of steps are. It’s a saving grace that a bench sits perfectly at the top of the first climb, before tackling the hill. I think my mum forgot how steep that climb was too.
I always find myself out of breath making it to the top so we took things slowly.
Because of social distancing and the narrow uphill paths, it was a case of stopping and letting people past at a 2m distance. However, that didn’t bother us too much. It just meant we had little rests. We still made it to the top in under half an hour.
The views at the top were just as stunning as usual, but it always looks slightly better on a sunnier day. We knew the rain was coming.
After sitting and resting for around 20 minutes we heard someone say they had felt a spot of rain. At that point, we decided to head back down.
You’re never as out of breath going downhill but you do have to be careful with your footing on the hill because the steps are quite simply different sized rocks. Despite that, we made it down pretty quickly and discussed other routes that could be taken to the top.
As we made it to the main road and headed back to the car, the rain arrived. In some sort of miracle, we made it just in time and avoided getting wet! We had left the washing on the line though…
Next time, I think I’ll try a different route (either left or right at the first lot of steps) to the top.
Find Roseberry Topping at: Newton-under-Roseberry, North Yorkshire TS9 6QR