Town Moor

One of the things I have always wanted to see in England is a moor. A moor is an ecosystem mentioned frequently in English romantic literature, often a place that reflects a feeling of bleakness, hopelessness or other generally depressing emotions in the main character(s). It was often described as a rolling expanse of knee deep purple plants. It always sounded very romantic and pretty to me. Dan thinks it's because I like pairing the colors purple and green.

Imagine my excitement when the map of Newcastle indicated we had a "Town Moor" within walking distance of Dan's university! So on a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon, I convinced Dan to take a stroll rather than study. Not put off by the hoards of rowdy teenagers enjoying the town skateboard park, we continued further into the park to discover a lovely pond with swans and ducks.

There were also a number of noisesome sea gulls. Dan was impressed by the size of the sea gulls -- much bigger than those back home. I told him we learned in general ecology that animals found across a wide habitat range often are bigger in the colder habitats than they are in the warmer ones. I was dismayed that I couldn't remember the name of the principle and even more dismayed when I couldn't remember if critters are supposed to be larger in the warmer or the colder climates. Oh! The things one forgets when not actively using one's training!

As we progressed further, we discovered a croquet field and a bocce field. There were some folks playing croquet at the time and we couldn't tell whether the field was BYOB or not.

Finally, we found a way through the fence surrounding all these pre-constructed fields. We made our way out to the moor proper. I was very disappointed to find it was just a big soggy field of grass. We spent a while squooshing through the field and looking about. As you can see, I had made an unfortunate attire choice for the day. I still haven't gotten the mud stains out of my white corduroys. These are generally silly pants for a city that always has puddles on the road and sidewalks, so I've kind of given up on them being nice pants. However, they are one of only four pairs of pants I brought with me, so they may just become my gray corduroys.

So it looks like we'll have to search a bit further afield for a real moor. We are surrounded on three sides by national parks (fourth is the North Sea), and one is named "North York Moors National Park" so I do have some hopes there. So join us next time for Sandy and the road less traveled (see Sandy's path on the left and the actual path, even soggier, on the right).

Apologies to the Leave No Trace fans out there, we didn't know there was a suggested path until after we'd been tromping around for a bit.