Yorkshire Dales walking and a retreat.

Upper Wharfedale.

A few of my walking followers are wondering by now when I am going to be putting on the walking boots and this is the moment when I am about to answer this question. My "Scarborough sandcastle manager" suggested a weekend away to a retreat in the heart of The Yorkshire Dales involving some walking.
This is essentially a three in one post as I struggled to justify posting the first part on it's own due to the British weather !!

We set off from The Aysgarth Falls car park on what we hoped would be a scenic 6 miles circular walk to the south.

Unfortunately the walk ended up being more of a photographic study of various trees....

.... and an inviting door to see an Art display in the small village of West Burton.

The village of West Burton was one of the locations used by the artist JMW Turner. Given the circumstances, he would love to paint some of today's ethereal scenery !

On leaving West Burton, we climbed up the hill in an easterly direction and stopped to .... enjoy the view of the village ( err ... passing mist) while we had lunch. We took the long lane ( no, it's not quite a river) north towards Temple and the Wensleydale road.

Wensleydale

Despite a lot of the walk majoring on farmland and Yorkshire countryside buildings....

... the main focus was near the end of the walk being Aysgarth Falls. Visitors have been coming here for centuries, although maybe John Ruskin,  JMW Turner and William Wordsworth didn't quite see it like this.

 There wasn't the enthusiasm for my artist / walking companion to paint it either (apologies to him... he knows I'm only having a bit of fun with him !) as he headed off to the car and the warmth of our weekend accommodation at Scargill House near the village of Kettlewell.

Although most of the house dates back to the 18th century, some of the more modern elements such as the 1960's chapel have been a bit more controversial in it's day with the local conservationists...

Grade II listed Scandinavian chapel

The site has an unusual history as it was once purchased as a shooting lodge for Grouse on the moors but  was sold by a family descendent at an auction to the church of England in 1957.

The building developed into a mixture of catering and accommodating for various groups and a conference centre for issues of Christian faith, youth and the environment.

Due to financial difficulties, the centre closed in 2008 but was sold to a new buyer the following year who wanted to continue the original vision incorporating it into the local Kettlewell community. Now what a place this would be to live .... an office with a view......

Checking on my blog comments !!

Garden wildlife.

On Saturday, we went for a walk south along The Dales way. We were joined by a youth choir from Leeds who insisted on singing certain mountain songs relating to the musical, The sound of music !!

The Dales way is an 84 mile long distance footpath stretching from Ilkley in West Yorkshire to Bowness in The Lake District. Generally the walking is pleasant and an introduction to the serious Long distance walking paths of The Pennine Way, Coast to coast and West Highland way.

Littondale

 It was at this point ( 3 miles south of Kettlewell) that we decided to leave the choir and complete a circular walk via the nearby hill top to the east.

Interestingly enough, my Grassington walk last year covered the southern half of this section.

Relaxation at the un-named summit

Time to move on ...

...as the sun was starting to go down and we were wanting to have something left to eat for evening meal !!

Ingleton, Yorkshire Dales

Ingleton is a villiage in the south west corner of the Yorkshire Dales which is generally regarded as a base for walkers and tourists for this corner of the Dales. The main activities include The waterfalls walk ( my last post), White Scar caves ( seen in the distance on Welcome to Yorkshire photo.. last post ) and The mountain of Ingleborough ( elsewhere on this blog ).

(As with the "Hawes" post, these pictures were affected by the weather, so apologies to the photographers out there, it is not a great set as it is more of a diary journal. Most of the pictures were taken in a hurry trying to keep up with friends on the way to the car. I promise that the next post will be mainly for photographers, there won't be many words and will be posted sooner rather than later )

After leaving the last waterfall, the walk seemed to be unending as the rain became heavier and it was with great pleasure that we came to civilisation and this was the first hose that we saw.

The next three shots are out of sequence but I thought you may like to get an idea of the village first.

Historic shop front,

As I was trying to capture photos my friends ran ahead and entered the first tea shop that they saw...

An interesting experience !! It was a caving shop ( pot holing down caves in this LImestone area is a big sport ) which had some really unusual equipment in that I had never seen before. The place didn't look as if it had changed much in 30 years....

There was a severe lack of people enjoying the hot drinks on a day like this and all for prices that did'nt seem to have changed much either in years !!

Even the resident dog seemed a bit startled by visitors disturbing him, but the point to our discussion was how these caving suits might have kept us dry and warm on the walk... !!

I wonder which colour I can see myself in... Green ??!! , spiders, sheep or dinosaurs ??!

To be continued...

The Waterfalls walk, Ingleton

The Waterfalls walk is a 4.5miles (8km) well trodden path, triangular shaped route on a private land path that has been popular with people since Victorian times.
On leaving the town of Hawes, the weather improved marginally enough to press on with our journey towards the previously mentioned Ribblehead viaduct. Although I had been down this road twice before, I didn't realise the serious height gain on the road as we climbed slowly up the hill. This was made more noticeable by the low lying cloud that we had entered !! We had hoped to see the summit of Whernside at one stage but I gave up that idea rather quickly because on reaching Ribblehead, we couldn't even see the viaduct far less the mountain behind it.
For those who don't know what to look out for, you have a far better idea of the view than my fellow passengers who still don't know what this view looks like......

Whernside and Ribblehead viaduct in happier times !! .... 13th May 2010

I had a reserve walk option up my sleeve of something a bit lower, less exposed, scenic and possibly worthwhile considering the amount of rain in the last few days at Ingleton. Apologies to the hardened walkers out there reading this..... yes, I know.......the last time I did this walk was when I took my Mother for a long day out in the car many years ago.
I knew that there might be an entrance fee into the grounds but unfortunately it was a long time ago and it was a bit difficult to accept that it was going to cost £18.

The ticket salesman did mention that we had free parking, but he couldn't understand the argument that it would cost the same if we had arrived in four cars.

After putting on our boots and setting out on the walk, we came across a tree that was filled with two pence pieces.....

It seems to be a long standing tradition that people place small amounts of money in certain specified tree trunks as either a good luck charm or a wish. I was wishing that the weather had been better & thinking..... I wonder what the gatekeeper does with all his small coins from the entrance fees !!

The first section of the walk follows the course of the River Twiss with several smaller waterfalls gradually gaining height towards the main falls of Thornton Force (title photo)

Over the edge.... for Thornton Force !

no medals for this performance, wrong pool... kayaks only

My fellow walkers decided that it was just as wet outside the water as it was in, so they threatened to dive in !!
We eventually reached the top of the hill and crossed the river. The remaining member of my group is spotted on the bridge trying to capture an illusive photograph before me.  I was going to leave this photo out as I spent a lot of time with the four image options I collected. I quite liked the angles of the posts, tried several variations but wasn't happy with the result with no-one on the bridge. I haven't had time to ask for permission to publish this yet, my friend has become faceless, sorry to him!!

vanishing point... well, not quite !

The middle section of the walk was along a mixture of farmland tracks and paths amongst the low clouds

We came across a selection of gates both old and new near White Scar caves. Welcome to weather........

The last section back to the car park followed the course of the River Doe with numerous smaller falls and a gorge

Lastly, even though the walk was only 4.5 miles long, the rain started again and it seemed like a long time before we arrived in Ingleton. You know it's a bad sign when a dog keeps an eye on the weather !! .

...... well, there was no space in the tree for my coins, I've saved them for a hot drink.. (to be continued !)