A Stroll With Stu: from Ralph's Cross to beer garden at Downe Arms, Castleton, near Whitby

Running on Sundays and Bank Holidays until the end of September (with a reduced service on Saturdays too), you can visit the high moors, Helmsley, Pickering, Bilsdale and lots of other places that you would normally wait a long time to get to on public transport.

Or perhaps try a country pub and leave the car at home?

They need your custom! Visit www.moorsbus.org for timetables and information.

I got off the bus at Ralph’s Cross at the top of Castleton Rigg to start this five-miler through the heather.

To be more accurate, this is Young Ralph’s Cross, (old Ralph has his own smaller cross about 200 yards south-west) a 10-foot high gritstone structure that was repaired in 1985 after it was badly damaged by vandals in the 1960s, indicating that anti-social behaviour isn’t a 21st Century concept.

I do hope Oscar Blaketon and Alf Ventress caught the culprits.

The understandably weathered cross is said to date back as far as the 11th Century (though the original will have been a timber affair) and as ever with these things, several legends have built up around its genesis.

One of them suggests that the cross marks the grave of a nun from Rosedale Priory and a monk from Farndale, who clambered up from the valleys for some illicit shenanigans, but were rumbled by their superiors and dealt with in a terminal manner. Tad harsh, I think.

Walk a little further up the road to reach the turnoff for Rosedale Abbey and head down there for half a mile.

On your left is another ancient monument in the form of Fat Betty.

The shape of this listed monument lends itself to the image of a squat, overweight figure – hence the name.

The ‘Betty’ bit though is once again steeped in legend, involving another nun from Rosedale Priory or perhaps a local farmer’s wife.

A further stretch of the imagination has Betty and young Ralph as a married couple who wait till dark and meet up for a chinwag every night!

Fabulous old folklore amid some wonderful scenery.

Tradition has it that you should leave a small offering on Betty’s base, but I only had a couple of wine gums left and frankly, I ate them.

I was though, happy to see that someone had left one of those little caramel biscuits you get at coffee shops for Betty and Ralph to share later that night.

Take the path on the opposite side of the road, (find it 10 yards nearer Ralphs Cross than the signpost suggests), striking away across the heather high above Rosedale.

Admire the lofty views until reaching the main road again, and head left for 300 yards or so on the verge of this busy road.

Look out for a vague-ish double track heading right into a shallow gully.

This is Jackson’s Road, a path which to be honest is not signposted and sometimes kind of fizzles out into reeds and boggy flora.

It does improve though, and begins to bend left to reach the popular old ironstone rail trackbed perched above Farndale.

Jackson’s Road looks quite prominent on Google Earth, but I have to confess that I got lost right at the start, made a ridiculous ‘senior moment’ decision to cross straight over it when I did find it, then tramped through the heather for a mile to join the old railway several hundred yards nearer the Lion Inn than I should have done.

It was a hugely enjoyable diversion though, as I bypassed several moorland ponds teeming with newts and tadpoles, skirted around some startled sheep, took great care to avoid a variety of squawking birds and crossed my fingers to ward off any lurking adders.

Follow the track below the Lion Inn, with wonderful views of Farndale to make your jaw drop, and on reaching the vertical road down to the dale, cross the main road on your left to descend onto the railtrack that served both sides of Rosedale.

It always amazes me to think that this tranquil scene couldn’t have looked much different 150 years ago.

More than 3,000 people worked here and the place will have been alive with steam trains, smoke and noisy machinery extracting iron to change the world.

Today though, the earlier haze had cleared and the panorama down the valley was superb, including a long distance view of the lovely Dale Head Tea Garden in the farm, far below.

Turn left and after half a mile or so, a signed path leads you straight up to the iconic pub.

My arrival coincided with a Moorsbus back to Castleton, so I hopped aboard for a home-made pizza in the gorgeous beer garden of the Downe Arms in Castleton, to round off another cracking walk in beautiful countryside, right on our doorstep.