Buckden to Grassington and a Pie Lunch
Rick, Stewart, Bella and Peter have recently been doing sections of The Dales Way in a series of day walks.
Today’s section was a ‘there and back in a day’ trip and had been postponed a couple of times because of bad weather.
It was on a dry but overcast day that Rick’s Honda met Stewart’s Jeep in Grassington and a bit of car juggling later we set off walking from Buckden – north to sarf.
The last time I walked with Bella she was an occasionally obedient, extremely precocious and (very) energetic pup with serious attitude. Now she’s quite obedient, not quite as precocious, amazingly energetic, VERY entertaining and still has serious attitude. A wonderful doggy!
Playing ‘fetch’ with Bella helped keep her mind off the sheep – although to be fair, Stewart has done a marvellous job of training her and she nearly always does as she’s told now. Mostly.
Leaving the village of Buckden, we crossed the River Wharfe to walk south on it’s western banks. Good dry ground with norralot of muddy bits made for good progress.
Yellow painted bicycles adorned much of the area – echoes of this year’s Tour de France.
Lunch No1 was taken sat on a convenient bench by the bridge across the River Wharfe at Kettlewell.
River Wharfe
In honour of the men of Kettlewell and Starbotton who gave their lives in The Great War and WW2
My kind of walk!
Kettlewell proved a bit of a bugger to escape from but we managed eventually.
Kilnsey Crag
Looking back at clouds over Kettlewell
The Yorkshire Dales, this couldn’t be anywhere else
Cool dude Rick
Conistone Pie – venue for Lunch No2
This looks an ideal area for a wild camp: lovely smooth ground, delightful Dales scenery….but no water. It’s the limestone y’see.
The assembled group were forced to eat some of Annabel’s High Energy Flapjacks – they seemed to enjoy them….or perhaps they were just brought up to be polite.
Pete, Rick and Stewart waiting for Bella to finish her lunch
Towards Grassington
Mrs Dale’s Dairies? Don’t blame me, it was Rick’s idea.
This is where we went…near as damnit:
Around 11 miles with around 1100’ of the upwards stuff
Having spent a load of September in (mostly) sunny Spain it was great to get back to do some walking in England – in good company too.
Oh, and we didn’t go to the pub. Not this time.
Whilst typing this up I’ve been listening to Mike Harding here, it’s good. You should give it a go…it’s free.
