One of those moments..

A few weeks ago, we decided to start going for regular walks in the countryside. We live in York, which is pretty much surrounded by countryside, like the Yorkshire Dales, and North Yorkshire Moors.

I got a few books, you know the type, '50 Walks In North Yorkshire', and ' Historic Walks - North Yorkshire', and we are choosing a walk to do every weekend.

The first one we did was to drive out to Pickering, park up, then get on the steam train and go to Levisham, the first stop after Pickering, then walk back through the countryside to Pickering. It's about a six mile walk, or about 10km.

It was during this walk that we had one of those 'SHIT! I wish I had my camera ready!!' moments, when a Long-eared Owl swooped from the trees, flew DIRECTLY at us for a few moments, long enough for my eyes to focus fully on the detail of it's face, then flew off over the railway and into the distance.
Honestly, we were speechless for a minute, I think I managed to utter a few sounds of awe, but certainly no coherent words!

Maybe you wouldn't have been so awestruck, I'm a bit of a bird lover, a paying member of the RSPB, so it was a wonderful, and memorable experience for me.

I just wish I'd had my camera at the ready, but at least the owl gave me enough time to commit the sight to memory.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures of our first walk, we've done three so far, I'll be adding the others next.
(Click pics for a larger version.)

Levisham railway station, after a fifteen minute or so ride on the North Yorkshire Steam Railway from Pickering, our walk begins.

The first hill.

It's just down the road..

At the end of the road, through the gate..

Carry on..

Ah, the train is beating us back to Pickering..

Whuh-oh, road blocked..

After wading through a muddy bog to get around the road block, somewhere to wash our boots!

It wasn't far from here that we met the Long-eared Owl.

Now the train is lapping us!

Aha, somewhere else to wash the mud off our feet.. Maybe we should have waited a couple of weeks, for the ground to dry out a bit!

Just over this field! What do you mean you're scared of sheep?! What did you expect to find, walking through the Moors?!

Hmm.. Cutting it a bit fine for daylight, I think!

A sign of Spring, the snowdrops are out.

I really enjoyed this walk, and it was nice to have a ride on the steam train at the start, I hadn't been on one since I was a child.
We were going to have a look around Pickering castle too, but as you can see from the pictures, we mistimed it a bit for daylight!

Ah well, maybe next time.. In the Summer!