Harrogate in the Spring

A few pix which will enlarge if you double click them.

Harrogate is beautiful at any time of year. The council makes a a big effort and the gardens are always fantastic so we are very lucky. Of course it's a tourist attraction too along with Bettys etc.

These were taken last week and are all within 300 metres of our flat. It's a nice place to be and it's great to be able to walk to the shops and to the train station and all that goes with living in the centre of a town. Maybe we will have to move into Auckland Central when we get back!

My expertise in placng pics within this blog is limited!

A Fantastic Walk Around Malham Cove - Yorkshire Dales National Park.

You can double click on any picture below to get a bigger size

Well , you'd think a walk with a name like this one would be near the sea, wouldn't you? But this is Great Britain and all is not wot it seems! This fantastic walk, the most spectacular we have done so far, is in the middle of Dales country about 10 miles from Skipton with nary a cove in sight. However the whole area was once under the sea and the limestone country uplifted by earthquakes, has been an area for human habitation and farming for thousands of years. The sites of extremely ancient settlements are quite common near this 10 km walk and we intend to return to visit at least one or two of them. Much of the trail is on National Trust land and so there is open access to places off the walk proper.

I guess variety is the main characteristic of the area. We left the Malham Tarn carpark and were immediately crossing typical moor-like pasture which within 5 minutes led us into a wide river valley, home to many sheep with their spring lambs. This valley rapidly became a small canyon with rocky and vertical sides through which we clambered over a well used path. As remote as we felt we knew we were not far from others!

Sure enough as we progressed deeper into the canyon we were met by two groups of young people coming the other way. However the day proved to be largely unaffected by crowds and we counted ourselves lucky as this was the Friday before bank holiday Monday.

After negotiatng two deep dry valleys we came to an area of pleasant level walking on the valley floor, which opened out to provide wide vistas of the surrounding country. After about 10 minutes we came to the top of Malham Cove and very carefully negotiated the long gaps, the grikes, that criss-cross the limestone pavement. Everywhere is evidence of glacial and water scouring. What we earnestly and successfully attempted to avoid was a broken leg as we crossed to the edge of the pavement! And we were rewarded with an unbroken view far below us, straight down the valley of the River Aire and the Penine Way wending through farmland, and then to the left and right more crags and moors of the Yorkshire National Park.

This area attracts many bird watchers as it provides remote and therefore safe places for rarely seen birds such as the Peregrine Falcon to live and breed successfully. As we reached the bottom of the 400 steps to the foot of Malham Cove we found a couple of Royal Forest and Bird Society officers, who has set up telescopes for walkers to view a family of Peregrines which were nested in a tree on the face of the cove. We saw the cock bird standing sentinel over his family which were hidden from us. A majestic sight. I believe that to train the young, the parents catch and stun smaller birds, and then demonstrate to the young ones how to catch and kill them. They even do this to crows which they don't eat and just leave the unfortunate victims after the training session has finished.

Looking back to the cove we pushed on down the Aire Valley only a short distance to Malham, and the Buck Inn, where we had a very nice pint each and two extremely plain and quite disappointing pub lunches. Perhaps they were gearing up for the onslaught of the holiday weekend tomorrow.

And so to the afternoon section! Little did we realise that, despite having ordinance survey maps, we were about to encounter some serious uphill work! But first a stroll along the river valley through to a lovely water fall and pool called Janet's Foss. According to the National Trust Information sign:

"Foss is an old Scandinavian word for water fall or force. According to legend Janet (or Jennet), queen of the local fairies lives in a cave behind the waterfall. The cave was formed by limestone bedrock being dissolved and eroded by the action of water and then redeposited on mosses growing at the lip of the fall. This has caused the remarkable but fragile tufa screen, which reaches to the plunge pool below."

However shortly after this beautiful sanctury, after climbing someway, I misunderstood our AA guide and at a critical point in the walk we turned right instead of left. We must have been too interested in the old terracing that farmers had created on the hill sides to provide deeper soil in which to grow crops. This was evidence of Saxon farming in the 7th & 8th Centuries.Anyway we found ourselves climbing a steep section of hillside above Gordale Beck. Determined not to turn back and with the authority of the ordinance map in our hands, we gasped our way to the top, cursing the way in which closely packed contour lines equate with reality. It was one of those walking moments when you really don't know if you are going to make it. What gave us the ability to carry on was the certainty that at the top would be a flat plain for the rest for the walk.

And we were right, but unfortunately, on further consultation with the map we realised we were walking on a parallel course to the AA instructions. However from our elevated position we could see enough close landmarks to exactly determine our position and the georgous ordinance map guided us back to our car using its own, and I am sure, far superior route! And what a route it was.

Flat along the edge of the huge Gordale Chasm and then gently nudged away by more limestone pavements to a broad grassy upland plain, which provided stunning views across ancient farmlands containing more ancient settlement sites and to more crags and valleys. Reminiscent of Central Otago but in green.

So we arrived back at the car 10 Kms later after about 4.5 hours of walking time, elated with our walk and thankful that we had carried a proper survey map. Certainly, although it is now May and quite warm, it was getting chilly on the high ground and a night in the open would have been, at best, unpleasant. A bottle of South African red and a warm meal back at home made an excellent end to a near perfect walk.