Cinder Track Feb 2018

I had an inspection ride up the Track from Scarborough to Ravenscar yesterday. Here's a brief report.

The last few weeks have been quite wet so there's a lot of water about. Now while you might expect to put on your walking boots and wellies if you're out in the countryside you wouldn't expect it in town.

Entering Barrowcliff Field the track is completely flooded

Technical note (what I believe to be the case) There's always been a spring near here and when the path was laid, about 20 yeas ago, a land drain was put along the left hand (western edge) connecting to a pipe under the track. Unfortunately, not long after, a heavy vehicle went along here and, because the path is narrow, put its wheels on the grass and broke the drain. 

Further up the Track, near the Gallows Close Centre, the Track goes through a cutting. Water regularly gathers here and in one of the puddles planks have been put down so that people can get through without getting too wet or too muddy.

Puddles in the cutting at Gallows Close

I have to admit that I don't think there's any other bit of well used public space in town where paths in this condition would be tolerated. Perhaps it has to do with the demographic of the Track's users.

A few years ago the Rugby Club moved out to its new location alongside the Track. There'd always been problems with surface water running along the Track, causing severe erosion, but improvements to the drains had made things much better. But, drains fill up and severe silting means that unless something is done soon we're going to get the erosion once again.

The drain on the left is almost completely full of silt and 

water will soon spill onto the Track and then run on down the hill

Beyond Burniston there is plenty of standing water and between Hayburn Wyke and the Grange Farm crossing (the two gates which cross the Track north of Staintondale Station) there is a lot of water running along the surface. It's clearly time for some routine drain maintenance.

and he had a gun....

A friend has just had his 64th birthday and it'll be mine later this year. Because he lives in Southampton I doubt he'll be renting a cottage on the Isle of Wight and if he ever does stay out till quarter to four there'll be  a search party long before anyone locks the door.

In the early 1980's I spent a year living in the United States and I didn't know anyone that I knew had a gun. Of course this doesn't mean that none of my American friends did, just that they didn't choose to talk about it.

A decade later we took our young family on a camping trip to the North West coast and spent a few nights camped half way up Mount Spokane in Washington State. Along with the marvelous views and an entertaining troupe of gophers we shared our campsite with, among others, a couple of old hippies in a camper van. 

Now one of the things about life under canvas is that you get to hear everything that's going on around you. The sound of rain, on a well pitched tent with a decent flysheet, is actually quite comforting but an unwanted trample through the Beatles back catalogue at half past three in the morning isn't. 

Not being particularly sensible, and by then sleep deprived and bad tempered, I crawled out of the tent, went over to the hippies camper van and politely asked them in that passive aggressive English way if they'd mind turning the music down. "I've got small children and we'd really like to sleep"

It worked, the music stopped, I calmed down and dropped off.

The next day I overheard the hippies discussing the incident with another camper. The final words were "and he had a gun.."

A family of gophers watching an idiot risk his life in a land full of guns