We Left Mum Bored in the Car

177. Roseberry Topping After spending the day, with my mum and dad, in Whitby, we stopped off at the North York Moors. We drove into Grosmont and parked up, dad suggested that me and him ought to go up Roseberry Topping, I didn¡¯t think that I had any sensible footwear, but my mum proved me wrong. She found out that I had a pair of very clean school trainers, in the boot. So we made plans to go up the mountain, but first, dad had to find out how to get there so he phoned his mum and dad, to ask them if it said how on the internet. Unfortunately, they had no idea of how to do it so while grandad was trying something different a man came up and asked if we wanted any help on getting there. We immediately said yes, so whilst dad was ending the phone call, the man explained how to get there from where we were. He also explained that it would take about half an hour to get up with adults or on your own, but about forty minutes to get up with a child, or children. Then he advised us to keep to the path (which I don¡¯t know why he told us that because when we got there we could see that the only other way up was a very, very steep side). When mum had come back from the art gallery, which lay across the road, we set off on our way to Roseberry Topping. The journey there was far longer than we¡¯d expected, about twenty-five ¨C thirty minutes. But when we got in sight of the very small Roseberry Topping, we realised exactly how small and how beautiful it was. The car was parked and mum was ready to read for about eighty minutes (and probably finish her magazine). Me and dad changed our footwear to his mucky trainers and my very clean trainers (not for long). After saying our goodbyes to mum (who already looked bored), we set off. The first bit was just, simply, the dust track, which was boring, no doubt about it. Hard-work (well not that hard-work, it was just a little steep) and boring. It seemed rather busy for a mountain of 1020 ft. except we only climbed 660 ft. from where we parked the car. Anyway, we had just finished walking on the dust track and all that was in sight ahead of us was an open wood, which was resting on the side of the mountain. After walking through the kissing gate, we started off, up, in the direction of where the footpath seemed to be. But that was before I had realised that a couple of surprises were coming across my way. That surprise was actually that dad was planning to take me up the steep side. When dad had explained this to me, I was secretly pleased, that he thought that I was good enough to go up it, but at the same time I could feel a bit like I had quite a bit of work coming my way. I complained to him once or twice, and then decided that I ought to give it a go and get up that mountain immediately. Dad pushed me up to start me of then I was climbing up the wall of the hill like a monkey. Dad now slightly ahead of me, was being patient with me whenever I needed a breath or felt that it was getting very hard. We had got to a good stopping point for taking a breather, so I sat down, begging dad for a sip of water but he said that it was to be saved until we got to the very top. Then we got to a very slippy, very muddy, very wet patch to climb up. I started off going fine, ahead of dad, and carried on, for what seemed like ages, but it wasn¡¯t long before the fun was brought into it again. I say this because I suddenly slipped on the mud and when I thought that I would only slip down a few centimetres if anything, I realised that I was really wrong, as I actually slipped down about 2metres. The bad thing was that dad tried to hold me up, but only ended up falling down too. Fortunately, it didn¡¯t take that long to re-climb where we had slipped and soon we had climbed to yet another suitable point for a breather, so we made the use of it while we could. Dad got out his camera and asked me to sit down on a nearby, large rock and I guess that I just sat down, made my very mucky jeans and trainers (not clean now, are they?) start posing. Just before we started climbing onwards (actually on a path this time) I had a look down on where me and my dad had climbed up earlier on. Dad joined me and then we both saw that it was no wonder that I had slipped as there was a very sheer drop where we were both looking. We stared at each other, amazed, and then I walked off, ready to start the next stage, but dad called me to wait as he had to take a picture of the supposedly beautiful looking scene in the distance. I just carried on, as I knew that he would catch up, which about a minute later he did. The sight of the top of the mountain was now rather clear and rather near, I couldn¡¯t quite make out the trig point, but I knew straight away that it would be up there somewhere. We both walked up and up, on and on and we were actually very nearly there. It was all too much for me, I was getting giddy with excitement and I thinking that dad was too, even though he¡¯d climbed about 300 mountains before (not this one though!) My legs were getting tired and so was I. All that I had to do was climb up several steps on the footpath and climb onto the very large rocks which led to the top of the hill. I was still huffing and puffing a little, from the steep part, but I reckon that it was partly through the steep stairs that we were climbing. We were now just a few metres away from the top, but I still couldn¡¯t see the trig point and I was beginning to wonder if there actually was a trig point. I climbed upon the large rocks and then dad surprised me by saying ¡ä go the hard way then, eh ` I didn¡¯t no what he was talking about but then I saw the footpath, leading up and around the side, but by that time I was already half way up the pile of rocks and rubble, therefore decided to go on. Dad declared that it was fine with him as he would have preferred to do something that was a little more adventurous than walking up a footpath for a while. It was only seconds after that before we got to the top. I stepped onto tie large platform, where I could then see the trig point lie and ran over just as dad came round the other way, round the top of the pile of rocks. ¡ä Bet ya ` I cried, just as I touched the top of the trig point, dad came over and touched it too, only seconds after me. For about the dozenth time that day, dad took out his camera and took a couple of pictures of me, this time I was practically strangling it. Then a gust of wind or two came and another couple was approaching up a different footpath, in fact I vaguely recognised them as a couple that set off a bit ahead of us, at the very beginning. I told dad this and he explained to me that it was because we went up the steep side, instead of going on a fairly flat path that wound round the hill, maybe a dozen times. They smiled at us as they reached the top, I smiled back, but dad didn¡¯t have chance, as he suddenly sighted my fleece getting blown of the edge of the platform. Fortunately, he caught it just before it disappeared, I thanked him so much, but I had too shout very loudly because it was very windy and the wind was carrying my voice away. In fact it wasn¡¯t long before I had to go and stand behind the trig point because of the wind, dad actually admitted later that he thought that I was going to get blown off, but to be honest, I did too. Dad went and sat down on a part of the platform that was caving down, but I had to wait until the wind had calmed down for a couple of seconds before I could move as ten year olds are quite light, really and could, like I say, get blown off the edge of a mountain. I made a quick get-a-way into the cover of the wind. Ten minutes later, we had set off, down the hill on the path that the other couple had come up. Most of the way down there was a footpath or steps so it was pretty easy. Fortunately, that way down was nowhere near as steep as the way up had been earlier. I ran down the stairs, my hair flying in the wind and it felt great! Dad was only a couple of feet behind all of the time, so he kept up well. About halfway down, we took a rest and sat on a couple of tree stumps on the ground. Dad took out his phone from his back picket and asked if we should ring mum to let her know where we were. I said that we ought to ring her but then an idea came to my head: we could pretend that we were only just approaching the top to make her think that she had a really long wait. That is exactly what we did, I almost blew it, though, I let out a stifled laugh on the phone, while talking to mum. Dad spoke for a little while too then we made our way back down the mountain. We looked at the time and we had about three minutes to get back to the car if we were going to beat that man¡¯s record. So we ran and ran as fast as we could. Eventually we hit ground where it was level so all we had to do was run down the massive driveway and into the car park, where the car was parked. We ran right down the drive, in to the car park and I banged on the window of our Honda. Mum looked amazed, I can tell you. We travelled back, caked in mud; we were back on the road for serious travelling.