Captain Cook's Monument

I set off for a day out on the North York Moors, looking forward to seeing the heather. I didn't appreciate just how drizzly and misty the weather was going to be. Oh, the joys of a great British summer! I stopped for coffee in Great Ayton where, despite it being a rather pretty village, I failed to be inspired to take a single photo in the gloom.

Then I walked up to see Captain Cook's Monument, on the moors outside the village. Erected in 1827, the obelisk commemorates Captain James Cook, who grew up in Great Ayton in the early 1700s and went on to become a famous seafaring explorer. On HMS Endeavour, Cook commanded a scientific voyage to the Pacific Ocean where he mapped the whole coastline of New Zealand and then in 1770 became the first European to sight Australia, eventually landing in Botany Bay. He was undoubtedly a great explorer though nowadays we question the colonial mindset of such expeditions. Cook was killed on Hawaii in 1779, after a dispute with the native Hawaiians. 

The moors were shrouded in cloud and drizzle, so I could barely see the monument and certainly not the views from up there. The moor is covered with heather and it is in peak bloom in mid-August. I love to see the swathes of purple... even in the mist! 

There are two types of native heather and in the photo below you can see both. The bell heather flowers first, larger and often a brighter purple than the soft mauve ling heather, which comes a week or two later. 

Up here on Easby Moor there is also a memorial to the crew of an aircraft that crashed in 1940 during WWII. Taking off to search for German minesweepers off the coast, it failed to gain enough height due to the formation of ice on its wings and it ploughed into the side of the hill. Three of its four crew members were killed.