By Duncan Atkins

Copyright thescarboroughnews

Despite several million gallons of water and grand plans involving drill-holes and fire retardant slurry, it has been burning since 1962. Despite extremely cheap underfloor central heating, the town was abandoned and remains so, save for a dozen hardy souls who have learned to live with smoke rising out of the soil in the back garden. This pales into insignificance when compared to Mount Wingen in Australia, which has been burning underground for about 6,000 years. So, around about the same time as the first humans started to settle in Europe, a lightning strike on a mountain on the other side of the earth started a fire in a coal seam that still burns today. I mention all this because this walk was meant to take in parts of Fylingdales Moor, but a fire tragically spread so far and so deep that it will smoulder underground for many months to come. Peat is a different beast to coal though, so the good news is that a long wet winter will ultimately permeate through the blackened soil and douse the heat. Vegetation will grow back but some plants and animals will take many years to properly regenerate. Kudos and praise to all the firefighters and farmers who ultimately got the blaze under control without the loss of a single property. I hope they get some sort of collective award for going above and beyond. Mrs Stroll and I stayed in a cottage in Robin Hood’s Bay for our 39th wedding anniversary. Quirky and stunningly beautiful it was too, with a patio sea-view that was so gobsmacking, you would happily spend the rest of your days there. We enjoyed this five-mile walk in warm late summer weather. (Having warbled on about fires, I haven’t got much space left to describe it actually!) Start at the bus stop on Thorpe Lane and make your way down the bank to the slipway. The brutally steep route is populated by people pausing for air on the way up, or clutching their knees on the way down. You need to check the tide times before setting off though, because I recommend you walk to Boggle Hole along the beach, and this is not possible a couple of hours or so either side of high tide. (Otherwise you’d need to use the clifftop Cleveland Way path which is pretty enough in a less spectacular way.) Low tide on the beach affords rock-pooling opportunities galore. We spotted tiny crabs and fish darting around under the seaweed, waiting for the sea to return. Fossil hunters were out in their numbers too, but despite an A-level in Geology, I never have any luck in that regard. You will need to negotiate the stream (Mill Beck) that winds across the beach near the Nab that blocks off access to Boggle Hole at high tide. This might actually be tricky after heavy rain, and I can’t recommend a route as it changes its course through the sand after every tide. Work your way up to the popular café at the Youth Hostel for tea and cake (we paid two visits – lemon drizzle the first time and chocolate orange the second). Sated, climb up the adjacent road, turning right at the top opposite a small car park, soon dropping steeply down back to Mill Beck. In fact, you seem to drop down a much greater distance than you walked up at Boggle Hole, which kind of defies geographical logic. The minor road unusually runs along the bed of the stream for some distance, but a bridge and path spare you the wet shoes. Climb up the road on the other side, past the left hand turnoff known as Mark Lane, then at a left-right dogleg, go up onto the Cinder Track. The popular walking and cycling route passes the expanding camping/caravan park at Middlewood Farm, before taking you to the road betwixt Fylingthorpe and Robin Hood’s Bay. Head right along the road for a short distance before taking a left back along the Cinder Track to soon reach the site of the former railway station. It closed for business on March 8, 1965, courtesy of a large man in a suit from Kent, sharing his time between a mahogany lined office and a ministerial Bentley. There are often events hereabouts – a farmers market and a craft fayre on our visit – indeed there is always something interesting to do (in a wonderfully low-key kind of a way) in Baytown. A walk round the alleys? A quaint pub? Crazy golf? When you are ready, I recommend lunch in the exceptionally lovely Brambles Bistro, down at the bottom of the bank. Enjoy!