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.
Lunch No1 was taken sat on a convenient bench by the bridge across the River Wharfe at Kettlewell.
In honour of the men of Kettlewell and Starbotton who gave their lives in The Great War and WW2
Kettlewell proved a bit of a bugger to escape from but we managed eventually.
Kilnsey Crag
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.
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.
That is a lovely walk, indeed there are some lovely camping spots. As you say, water is a problem, last time I filled up in Grassington.
ReplyDeleteI backpacked the route around 4 years ago - I really enjoyed it but wild camping was very difficult. In fact there was only one grotty spot (around Gearstones?) where I managed to camp and get water.
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