Sometimes there's no easy way there. You have to walk for miles. There's no roads, no quick wins, just a long roam along old tracks and pathways. Thieve's Moss is just such a place.
I've yet to explore it properly and my camera is eager for the chase. Nicola and I spent a few hours up there this week, after circumnavigating the lower slopes of Ingleborough from Austwick in the Yorkshire Dales. We approached via the Norber Erratics, a fascinating scatter of glacial sandstone hulks dropped by two giants who were attempting to build a causeway, or playing marbles... we can't decide which. 'Glacially deposited' just doesn't sounds as much fun!
Thieve's Moss is vast. An expanse of limestone pavement that stretches to the horizon, pincushioned by Skylark song, haunted by Wheatear (that ephemeral little migrant bird who's name in Viking means 'white arse'). It's hard to imagine rainwater creating these huge sculptures, but that's how limestone pavement is formed. Limestone is soluble and dissolves over time. 25 millimetres per thousand years. By that measure this landscape will look very different in 20,000 years. I wonder if anyone will still be around to see it?
It’s beautiful, worth the trek! it reminds me of the Burren in Co. Clare. A wild and almost empty place. But look closer and you find rare wild flowers including the beautiful blue gentian and listen to beautiful birdsong on the breeze and various wildlife along the way.
love your new dog, it helps me connect in nature more fully on my owh short outings. yesterday I walked in ravensroost wood amidst banks of primroses and watched jenny wren building her nest