Hudson Way: from Market Weighton to Kiplingcoates

I take the bus to Market Weighton to explore this end of the Hudson Way, a disused railway track which now serves as green corridor, right of way and cycle track. I weave around the village and take the well marked route to join the way, which crosses the Wolds Way on the track of a Roman Road. I take a short detour towards Goodmanham and re-take the Hudson Way by a bridge taking the road. The Rooks are very busy and noisy with young on the nest (and one that has met its end by falling out). 

A view of the start of the Hudson Way, looking back towards Market Weighton.

The track follows Spring Dale, slowly ascending, and is lined with mature Hawthorns, now in bloom and tall Ashes and sycamores, and in this early section it runs parallel to Mill Beck, and by the spring line that runs at the base of the chalk, so, despite the prevailing drought in the last months, it feels cool and damp.

The picturesque bus route takes you around Beverley Minster, St Mary's church and the Westwood, where this cow patiently waited until the bus went past to cross the road.

Rook fledgling.

Rooks.

A Dunnock sat atop the finger posts in the crossing with the Wolds Way.

The gorgeously restored Mill House in Goodmanham, with the beck running at the front. Its design and placement indicates a double use as a wind mill and water mill.

Another view of the track, by the Goodmanham road crossing.

There are several paths running down to Mill Beck, I spot this Common Polupody growing on a tree branch over the water.

St. Helen's Well location with its decorated tree.

St Helen's Well triangular bath.

This flower got my attention, yellow but reminiscent of Water Avens.

The petals form an attractive cup. Later I found out it is a hybrid.

Soon later I found one of the parental species: Water Avens, Geum rivale, which grows in locally abundant populations on the western fringes of the Wolds, favouring wet flushes and woodland.

And this is the other parent species, the very common Wood Avens, which grows in gardens and woods.

Green Veined White. Not as many butterflies as I was expecting, but I saw a few Orange Tips, a few Speckled Wood and a Brimstone along the track.

A curiously designed bench just by the crossing of the crossing by Riffle Butts Quarry.

By this crossing the beck opens us, and there is a large bed of Yellow Flag iris.

Red-legged Partridge. One of four seen.

Yellowhammer.

Whitethroat. A couple heard or seen near Kiplingcotes. Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Willow Warblers also in song.

The panel by the entrance to Kiplingcotes Chalk pit, a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve.

A view of the reserve, looking East.

Carline Thistle.

Twayblade Orchid starting to grow.

The first Common Blues of the year for me were out, but no sign of Dingy Skippers.

I rarely take a trip to Kiplingcotes without seeing a Red Kite.

Adder's Tonge. Many on the lowest part of the reserve.

Field Pansy.

I walked around the reserve, looking for the Dingy Skippers. Ten sheep were grazing at the top.

After lunch I witnessed the great sheep escape, as the YWT tried to get them down the cliff to transport them to Kilnsea. I didn't take too long walking back, although I found a lovely track by the beck with gave me my first Marsh Tit of the year, quite close to Market Weighton.

Marsh Tit.

Beckside path, with a soft dam on the beck on the left. 

Some mature Alders were growing on the beck itself.

As I drank a coffee back at Market Weighton, I took a photo of a Swift, to mark the end of a lovely trip.

More information

Public Toilet facilities available at Market Weighton and and cafes and pubs both at Market Weighton and Goodmanham. 

Market Weighton and the start of the Hudson Way is serviced by East Yorkshire Buses, with connections to Hull, York, Driffield and Bridlington.

An autumnal Drewton Dale circular with Hull Nats

A circular walk with Hull Nats from Beverley Clump to Weedley Springs, then up East Dale and back by Austin's Dale and back by Drewton Dale. Shortly after starting, a flock of Chaffinches called our attention, amongst them were two Brambligs, the first I see this season. The light was poor for photography all day, a light mist covering the Wolds, preventing us to enjoy the views over the Humber that abound in this route.

Male Brambling.

Brambling.

These looked like a Badger had been rooting to uncover leatherjackets and other tidbits under the turf.

The Little Wold vineyard, the only one in East Yorkshire.

One of two Roe Deer we saw. It glanced towards a distant dog.

The walk includes a section of the Yorkshire Wolds Way. This waymarker is by Weedlay Springs.

This is Weedley Springs, a series of springs at the end of Drewton Dale, the source of Drewton Beck.

It wasn't long until we saw our first Red Kite. There were also several Buzzards and a Kestrel seen.

East Dale, a slope showing the skeletons of dead ash trees.

There are some magnificent mature Beech on this route, the combination of their yellow leaves and the red carpet of leaves was fantastic.

At the top of East Dale we came across a small flock of Yellowhammers feeding on the stubbles.

A small dam. I imagined it replaced by a Beaver dam. A Grey Wagtail was about.

On a field with cover crop including sunflowers, a large flock of finches were feeding, nervously moving back and forth between the food and the trees: Linnets, Greenfinches, Goldfinches and Chaffinches, and two Marsh Tits, which fed one the field a short distance from the trees. Encouragingly, Marsh Tits were present all along the walk.

Altogether, a very pleasant autumn walk around the Wolds.

Walking the Humber. Stage 3. Brough Haven to Hessle Haven

I get the 8:03 train to Brough. It's cloudy and mild. In Brough Haven, a westerly wind blows the drizzle onto my back. A Grey Heron hunts by the shoreline on the ebbing tide. There are four Shelduck and many Teal and Mallard.

 A Kestrel hunts over the grassy, muddy floodbank peppered with molehills. A bit later, a Marsh Harrier lets itself be carried east by the wind. I am walking by the disused Brough Aerodrome, the Wolds in the horizon. Curlew feed on the grassy airfield. From Brough Haven there is a long stretch of reedbed and mudflats occasionally interrupted by creeks where birds gather to wash. In one of these creeks, Elloughton Clough, a Cetti's Warbler, my first of the year sings its explosive phrase from the reeds. A Skylark sings too.

 There is not much on the Welton Waters fish complex or on the sports lake. The only thing of note is a spit on the mudflats called Oyster Ness. I can't imagine oysters growing here now. Opposite I can see South Ferriby and Read Island, and sand banks on the Humber.
 At the end of Welton Waters, I get to an area where the footpath is on the muddy saltmarsh by an industrial estate. I checked the tide times to make sure I could cross it and it is almost low tide. Despite the rain, the mud is quite firm and I can bridge this gap in the path with no issues. Just as I am rejoining the path on the bank I flush a Green Woodpecker, which flies to an Alder. Later I hear it whinnying.
There is an area of brownfield where an old tile and brickyard and a mill were sited which is now greening. In it, there is a marshy area with reeds, and clumps of old trees in the corners. I make a stop for a snack on a small copse with pine trees by Brickyard Lane.
 I decide to walk on the beach by the base of the cliff, the so called Redcliff, to have a good look at it (top shot). At its highest it is just over 10 m high. It is made of a juxtaposition of laminated sediments and glacial till indicating the existence of a moraine west of the Wolds, where the North Atlantic ice sheet pushed into the Humber Gap, a narrow opening between the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire wolds during the Last Glacial Maximum (about 20,000 years ago). At the time, an ice sheet of over 300 m high covered the Holderness and the area where Hull stands now, up to the Wolds. A glacial lake, Lake Humber, sat east of the Wolds, sandwiched between the North Sea and the the vale of York ice sheets. It is a pleasant walk at the base of Redcliff, mostly sandy underfoot with small pebbles and stones of various colours and sizes. As I approach Long Plantation, the recent erosion is evident with a few large trees collapsed onto the beach.
It is at Long plantation that I meet the Yorkshire Wolds Way, as it climbs through the wood towards Melton. 

I had planned to take the train back at North Ferriby, but it is early and the Humber Bridge looks within easy reach, so I press on. The beach by Ferriby is slightly muddy, but quite pebbly and the tide is still very low. I climb the steps onto the floodbank and on Reed Pond there is a female Goldeneye. 

 Just outside North Ferriby there is a monument to the Ferriby Boats. In September 1937, brothers Ted and Bill Wright, amateur archaeologists, found a wooden plank sticking out of the mud by North Ferriby and realised it was part of an ancient boat, exposed due to the erosion in this part of the Humber. They they painstakingly dug it out from the sticky mud at low tide. In the following decades they found and excavated two more boats. These large, 15 m long boats were well preserved Bronze Age planked boats which have been carbon dated to 1700 to 2000 BC. These boats are of international importance, as their craftsmanship was not thought to have been used until Roman times. The area around Ferriby must have had a settlement and might have offer rare opportunities to cross the estuary as the only high ground for miles, as to the East, carr and marshy ground would have prevented or made difficult to land and transport cargo to the north of the estuary. Despite the abundance of jetties in old maps of the area, little remains of them, just a few post sticking out of the mud. There is a scarcity of boats, I see none during the trip today other than those at Brough Haven. Maybe the Ferriby boats were the first Humber ferry?

 The stretch to the Humber Bridge runs parallel to the train line and the path is quite smooth, on a raised bank with large boulders by the estuary. The tide is roaring in now, covering the mudflats. The Humber Bridge looms imposing. The sky clears somewhat and there are some dry spells. I stop for a light lunch at the Country Park restaurant and walk under the bridge to Hessle Haven before taking the train back. The walk is 12 km.

Featured species: Cetti’s warbler

Another reed loving species that has become a success story. The Cetti's Warbler has steadily colonised the UK, with the first record in 1961. This small, skulking warbler, noted by its loud, explosive song, colonised Kent in 1972 and since it has spread north steadily, only slowed by harsh winters. It first bred north of the Humber in 2006.
More information
Wright, E. 1990. The Ferriby Boats. Seacraft from the Bronze Age. Routledge.
Bateman, Mark D., David JA Evans, David H. Roberts, Alicia Medialdea, Jeremy Ely, and Chris D. Clark. 2018. The timing and consequences of the blockage of the Humber Gap by the last British− Irish Ice Sheet. Boreas 47: 41-61.

Grey Heron and Shelduck on Brough Haven.

Flood bank and sea wall by Brough, with the reedbed belt and mudflats beyond.

Brough Aerodrome and the Wolds.

Elloughton Clough, where the Cetti's warbler sung.

West Clough.

The stickiest bit of the stage today. At high tide it has to be rock hopping.

Teal. 

Curlew.

Field by Long Plantation.

The beach by Redcliff.

Redcliff and Long Plantation.

Redcliff with some laminated sediments.

Fallen trees on the beach.

Wolds Way sign in Long Plantation.

Looking back from Ferriby beach.

Redshank.

Goldeneye.

Remains of jetties and the Humber Bridge.

The only horses (and donkey) on the stage.

A group of Wigeon.

Monument to the Ferriby boats.

Hellebore.

Humber Bridge.

Another ruin of a jetty.

The chalk mill by Humber Bridge.

Lesser Black-backed gull and Common Gulls.

Looking back to the Humber Bridge.

The Official sign of start of the Yorkshire Wolds Way.

Pied Wagtail.

Curlew at Hessle Haven.

Hessle Haven.

Remains of the shipyard and dock at Hessle Haven.

Today's stage. 12 km.