Moods of the North York Moors

The North York Moors National Park is renowned for having the largest continuous tract of heather moorland (160 square miles/414 sq kms) in England and Wales. But what is sometimes forgotten is that it is also a coastal National Park with 25 miles (40 kms) of mostly inaccessible, precipitous cliffs, punctuated by only a handful of settlements. The weather can be harsh at any time of the year but especially in winter, when a white drape of apparently uninterrupted snow can seem heavenly to the photographer, while in reality it can be a whiteout hell for those who make their living from the land, and their animals marooned out on the open moor.