17th November, A bit more Dales Way

Bridges and Bodgers from Grassington to Bolton Abbey

I collected Rick at the unearthly hour of 7.20am (the 7.20am in the morning) for the drive up to the Yorkshire Dales and the arranged meeting with Bella, Stuart and Peter. It’s a long drive to do such a short walk but it’s an attractive route, we don’t race along, and we enjoy each others company = a lovely day out.

Leaving Bella’s Jeep at Bolton Abbey, 5 walkers squoze into my much smaller car for the drive to Grassington and the start of the day’s walk. Observant readers will notice that we’re doing this route in easy stages (VERY easy stages!) and that we’re walking North to South rather than t’other way around….nor are we walking West to East.

 Off we jolly-well go

The first few miles was on the eastern side of the River Wharfe. The river was a bit full, rain had been raining quite heavily:

The Wharfe, just outside Grassington

Bella

Crossing the suspension bridge over the Wharfe at Hebden

Lunch stop No1, Loup Scar

17th Century bridge at Burnsall

Barden Bridge

A mile or so south of Barden Bridge, the river suddenly narrows quite dramatically at The Strid. The broad and relatively slow flowing River Wharfe is forced through a narrow rocky ravine resulting in a maelstrom of churning, choppy waters. If you fall in it’s unlikely that you’d survive.

 The Strid

Right in the middle of Strid Wood we happened upon this bodger’s workshop:

Nobody at home 

The bodger’s handiwork

The path climbed away from the river to give us a nice view of Bolton Abbey:

 

 

The final river crossing of the day and we were given a choice – footbridge or stepping stones. Guess which way we crossed?

Two sheep 

A tree

A lovely day out in great company…..and scones and flapjacks. And a beer before heading for home.

This is what we did (sort of):

17.5km, with 286m of up and 364m of down.