George Wilkinson walks across farmland in the evening and returns as the bats come out.

SOMETIMES walks over farmland can be bothersome with beasts, barbed wire and all. However we were confident that today's five miles, from Great Barugh, near Malton, would be an easy route around the fields because it is nearly all permissive paths, funded by DEFRA, one of their Countryside Stewardship Schemes. So confident that we did it in the evening and didn't get lost in the night.

Great Barugh is one street, a good length taken up by the fine brick of Manor House Farm. So we were out in the country in minutes, over a bridge and on to a floodbank. Not though without some surprise because although there was a new kissing gate at the access point, there was no information board as there should be. In fact there were no signs anywhere.

Never mind, the first half-mile was an elevating ten-foot above ground level on floodbanking. To one side the River Seven meandered, thick with willow, purple with balsam and white with convolvulus.

To the other side the flat fields spread out, scraped clean of their harvest, gleaned by rooks, lined with hedges, and scattered with old oaks.

The views were terrific, west to the Howardian Hills, north to the moors and in between parts of the Hambleton and Cleveland Hills. The thing that resembles a giant stick of red and white rock, Blackpool at Flamingoland, is soon to be toned, not torn, down.

Then we dropped off the bank and traced a few field boundaries, mostly on wide, eco-friendly 'Conservation Walk' verges, the ground hard and cracked. At Flint Hall there is a cricket pitch which retains its ridge and furrow ripples, painful for fielders.

Flint Hall is on Moor Lane which turns to track and must be almost without traffic.

It connected us with a fruity hedge with brambles, rosehips, sloes, and a hundred yards of elders weighed down with berries.

To the other side of the hedge tall maize rustled in the breeze. Partridges pecked and pottered, pigeons exploded into flight, a pair of hares lolloped off and a single exhilarating hare flew like a bullet, head down, like a blip on a radar screen, a quarter of a mile over a racetrack-smooth field.

For a mile the path follows Double Dike which is an impressive parish boundary, a watercourse sandwich with a thin filling of old oak wood. There was no water, some oaks had suffered rather rough pruning.

By now the light was lovely, pale grasses shimmered. Cliff Hill is very close, has a trig point and a regular shape like an upturned saucer.

A pair of Roe deer were a quarter of a mile away. I went a-stalking, a ditch for cover, got close.

A mile away, as the saxophone sounds, is The Shed at Brawby. A sunset had kicked in and poured orange and purple on the moors.

We got back to Great Barugh as the bats came out, couldn't resist the friendly glow of the Golden Lion and listened to a farmer jest about his version of the Atkins Diet, beef at home from the beast in the freezer and steak when he came out.

Fact file

Distance: Five miles.

Time: Three hours.

General location: Vale of Pickering.

Start: Great Barugh.

Right of way: Most of route off road is on permissive access paths, Flint Hall Countryside Stewardship Scheme, Access End Date September 2012.

Date walked: Monday September 8, 2003.

Road route: The Malton to Kirkbymoorside road.

Car parking: Free car park opposite The Golden Lion.

Lavatories: None.

Refreshments: The Golden Lion at Great Barugh 01653 668242. No food Sunday nights and Monday nights 'at the moment'.

Tourist & public transport information: Pickering TIC 01751 473791.

Countryside Stewardship Scheme info (Free North Yorkshire Conservation Walks & Rides Access Register: 0207 238 6907 or www.countrywalks.defra.gov.uk)

Map: Based mainly on DEFRA map and OS Explorer 300 Howardian Hills and Malton. Plus a bit of Explorer OL 26.

Terrain: Flat farmland.

Points of interest: A good, potentially very good, one year old, DEFRA-funded route.

Difficulty: Easy underfoot, will be navigational child's play when the signs and arrows go up, which I guess will be soon.

Dogs: Suitable.

Weather forecast: Evening Press and recorded forecast 0891 500 418

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1. Downhill through village, first road left (signed Brawby), bridge, 100 yards, snicket gate on right to floodbank path.

2. At wire/metal/concrete fence/barrier across floodbank, left to field margin (hedge on right), left at corner, pass farm, left at corner, 20 yards, bridge on right. (From here you can shorten the walk, via Brawby Grange.)

3. Right to margin, left at corner, pass shed, hedge gap on right, left to road, 200 yards.

4. Field-margin/track on right which skirts fields, mostly with ditch and hedge/trees to left.

5. Ignore small gap on left, fieldgate-sized gap on left and right to Moor Lane (track), pass farm and retrace steps to Direction No.3. Straight on to field corner.

6. Right at corner, concrete bridge on left before trees and right to margin, left-hand bend (wire fence) and join outward route.

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 09:26 Saturday, September 13, 2003