Day 7 - West Heslerton to Staxton Hill, 8.9m

After another day off yesterday because of rain, today looked like it would be a lovely day, and so it turned out.  It can be difficult to find suitable locations to park a car at the start and end of a section and today's section was shorter than we'd have liked as a result.  We were rewarded almost immediately with wonderful views over the vale of Pickering, though the down side of heading east along the northern scarp is the road noise from the nearby A64.

A little further on, we came across a man spraying his potato crop.  He very kindly stopped so that we wouldn't have to breathe the spray as we walked past.  More wonderful views followed. This section of the walk is much more reminiscent of the North and South Downs than anything we have seen so far.

 There have been lots of amazing wildflowers along the route, but today's displays were extra special.

There were lots of interesting things to see including a small golf course run by a pig farmer, right next to his pigs!  And more picturesque and less smelly, the "French Victorian" Ganton Hall and St Martin's Church, Ganton, where we stopped for lunch.

After that, it was a steady climb through more fields of wheat and barley to the end of today's walk at Staxton Hill.  We were very glad that our climb up the scarp was much more gradual than the road, which has 'select low gear NOW' signs at the top and bottom and has escape lanes!