7 September 2018
The 5.5 hour drive from Beckley to Airton was long but uneventful. We drove through the outskirts of London, under the River Thames via the Blackwall Tunnel (1897) on through Cambridge, around Leeds and finally into the little village of Airton.
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| The entrance to Blackwall Tunnel in London |
Airton is listed in the Doomsday Book, in the late 1600's as where a large Quaker community developed leaving behind a stone Friends Meeting House still used to this day. The village is so small it doesn't even have a pub or post office. There is a population of 228 living somewhere in the village but so far we have only met Dave and his dog Pebbles who was probably named after the beaches in Sussex.
Our apartment is in an old stone set of flats, two storey with views over the River Aire (hence the name Airton) just five metres away.
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| The front of our accommodation |
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| The back of our accommodation |
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| The view from our accommodation. |
The Pennine Way trail is on the other side of the babbling stream which, just four kilometres away, delivers a walker to the picturesque old village of Malham and stunning Malham Cove, an excellent area to hike which receives over a million visitors a year. The weather for the week is forecast to be wet but we are here to catch up with Julie's relatives so that will likely provide most of the entertainment. A quick walk around the village and back home along the banks of the River Aire ended the day.
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| The walk along the Aire River in Airton |
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| Cow! |
Our first full day in Airton was wet and no walks were planned however extensive research was required for our visitors coming tomorrow. We had to try out the only cafe in the village, The Town End Farm Shop, for suitability so morning tea was had there while we looked out the window at the Yorkshire Dales through the rain. The cafe passed in every way. Next, continuing our important research, we headed off into Malham to the Secret Garden Bistro. This Bistro is so secret that there are no signs anywhere along the narrow winding dry stoned walled roads around Malham. We ended up driving right past it and up into the hills above Malham Cove looking for a place just to turn around. A windy, dry stone walled single lane 'road' kept us caged in for several kilometres. Finally we turned around in the drizzly rain and found the Secret Garden Bistro by following the signs to Beck Hall.
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| Look Jeff, I'm researching |
Beck Hall, come Secret Garden Bistro, was so beautiful. We were the only ones there, I wonder why, and selected a table beside the full length window overlooking the stream adorned by weeping willows. The food was outstanding as was the local Ale.
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| Yes Julie you're a good researcher. |
Tired from all our research we headed home to await Julie's relatives who were coming for morning tea and lunch at the Town End Farm Shop the next day. The rain kept falling but we were grateful to have an excuse to have a day off.
Sunday 9 September - my old younger sisters birthday. This didn't go by without the obligatory "God You're Getting Old" phone call.
10:30am arrived and we were ready for Julie's relatives, Harry and Carole and their daughter Sharren and her husband Ashley. At 11:30 am they finally arrived, they had gotten severely lost - Yorkshire locals lost in Yorkshire! Anyway we had a great day with all of them. Harry had a fresh black eye courtesy of a fall at home, so I named him Spot. All too soon they had to leave, it was 5pm, as they had to allow time for getting lost on the way home. It has been a couple of years since we last saw them and will be at least a couple more before we are back here again.
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| Carole, Harry (Spot), Ashley, Julie and Sharren |
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| Spot |
Next day, and the rain had decided to have a break for a few hours so we headed down the road to the nearby village of Gargrave for a walk through lush farmers' paddocks and along the longboat canals that criss cross England. The walk was really picturesque with some longboats tied to the banks of the canal. There were several locks to walk past and at one stage we were walking beside the canal viaduct that crossed over a river below. The walk was relatively short at only 5.4klm but it had so many lovely and new features for us this trip to make it very enjoyable.
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| They're only sheep Jeff |
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| Cows!!! |
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| Beside a lock |
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| Beside a Canal |
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| Canal drained for maintenance |
The nearby market town of Skipton provided us with some needed outdoor clothing gear and lunch before heading home for the day.
Tuesday and it was Julie's cousin Duncan and his wife Deanna turn to visit. It had been four years since we last saw them and it was great to catch up with them once again. The local Old Swan Inn in Gargrave down the road provided us all with much needed sustenance including a very nice local Real Ale. We chatted until late afternoon before saying our farewells.
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| What is wrong with my right foot? |
Wednesday - the weather was forecast to be sunny and warm so it was cool, cloudy and threatening showers towards the end of the day. Heavy overnight rain had filled the streams, the puddles, wet the grass and facilitated the making of copious amounts of mud. We now discovered why the English tend to walk later in the day - so that everything dries out.
Leck Beck in Lancashire, just 45 minutes away, was our walk for the day. Our backup walk was the Erratics near Austwick. So, with no idea what all that meant we arrived in the church grounds of a speck of a village, Leck, to have a look at its Beck. The fog was slowly lifting when we pulled in and we set off wondering what the heck is Leck Beck.
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| The morning mist clears to reveal the muddy wet path |
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| "It's OK Jeff they're only sheep" |
Up through lush farm paddocks we trekked carefully stepping in mud all the way. Rainwater and dew dripped from all forms of vegetation and in many places the ground ran with seeping water from the hills above.
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| "It's OK Jeff they're only grouse on a very successful breeding program." |
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| Stop babbling! |
A babbling stream kept is company all the way and as we climbed high up into the Yorkshire Dales it wisely remained well down in the picturesque valley below us. We had to forge numerous "usually dry" streams with now submersed stepping stones all but useless as an aid to crossing. The worst bit was walking through densely packed chest high tracks dripping with wet bracken.
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| Up to my armpits |
At one stage we came across an enormous flock of grouse doing very well on a support program set up for them. They did tend to try and hide in the long grass beside the path we were following before taking flight in a noisy flurry as we came within a metre or two of them. There were lots of screams from both bird and human for quite a while.
Nearly half way through the walk things got a bit vague as far as directions went. Our instructions read "Turn right when the path levels out and follow an indistinct sheep path to a tumbled down wall hidden in bracken" which started about 45 minutes of stumbling through heather trying to decide which of the 4 million indistinct sheep paths we should be following, that was even if we were in fact looking at a sheep path.
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| "Julie, it says to follow an indistinct path" |
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| Mmmm - which would be the best indistinct path to follow? |
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| "Jeff, is this indistinct enough?" |
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| "No, I think this is more indistinct because I can't see it!" |
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| "I think you're right Jeff, let's follow that one" |
After a while we abandoned even looking for the tumbled down wall and went into survival mode looking for the indistinct laneway several kilometres across a sheep paddock filled with unfenced sinkholes.
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| One of the many sinkholes |
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| The path |
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| The views |
Eventually we made it to the laneway and there below us was a spectacular view of the Yorkshire Dales and a dry sealed path going downhill to our car several kilometres away.
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| We made it to a distinct path |
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| The delightful stroll back to the car |
A light shower did fall on us but it soon let us be and we enjoyed the final leg of our walk as our clothes and boots slowly dried in the cold biting wind.
Lunch was held in a tiny off the beaten track tearoom which was well known to many local walkers in the area. During lunch Julie decided she felt pretty good and suggested we could do the backup walk to the erratics - clearly she doesn't carry a backpack! Erratics are glacial carried rocks and boulders that the glacier deposits when it melts. Obviously confusing geologically because the stone is alien to the local area. The Norber Erratics are world-famous, located outside the pretty village of Austwick and that is where we went next.
The area, when bathed in sunlight which it was, is just beautiful. Scars, or cliffs as we call them, stand guard over the lush green valleys below, all of which have boulders of varying sizes dropped erratically all over them.
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| A scar with erratics |
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| Walking below balancing erraitcs |
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| Looking for erratics |
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| Balancing erratics |
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| An Erratic walker |
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| A walker with style |
Up the scar we tramped, in and around the boulders we walked all the while glancing below us at a fast running stream and a separate waterfall literally emerging out of the cliff below us. The two streams combined into one and flowed through a farmers paddock creating a beautiful scene straight out of a movie. We were pretty weary at the end of the walk but mighty happy with the day we just had.
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Pretty mountain spring fed stream
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| Old mill building now a Tea House |
Thursday 13 September - our last full day in the region and it was the southern parts turn for us to spend some time in. 1 hour 20 minutes south of Airton is the industrial 1860 era woollen processing area of Healey. An important stream, River Spodden, created and still flows through Healey Dell which provided water power to the numerous factories that processed wool. Abandoned to nature today the Dell is littered with old and dilapidated buildings from a long gone era.
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| A Jenny Craig style |
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| Grow your own stumps |
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| Pristine forest |
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| That's a cow! No it's a bulllll!!!!!!! |
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| Cascades |
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| Aqueduct looms out of the forrest |
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| Looming looming .... |
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| Water race that disappeared down a man made hand carved hole in a cliff |
Our walk took us through the shady forest in the dell, up and over the top and back down again. A disused train track, now a lovely bike and walking trail, took us over an impressive eight-arched viaduct 30 metres above the valley below. Our trail wound down and under the spectacular structure to a water race leading to a hand carved hole disappearing in the rock face so that stream water could be diverted to a holding dam for the woollen mills. The trail not only ended up at our car but at a Tea Room empty to all but us.
And so ends our time at Airton in the southern Yorkshire Dales. The weather here has been the wettest of our trip so far but to have beautiful lush countryside filled with clear and flowing streams you need some rain sometime.
Tomorrow is moving day where we head further north to Budle Bay, on the way catching up with Jacqueline, another Julie's Yorkshire cousins.
So that's it for another Blog. We both remain well and are thoroughly enjoying the trip.
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| Bye |
Bye for now
JeffnJulie
Next day, and the rain had decided to have a break for a few hours so we headed down the road to the nearby village of Gargrave for a walk through lush farmers' paddocks and along the longboat canals that criss cross England. The walk was really picturesque with some longboats tied to the banks of the canal. There were several locks to walk past and at one stage we were walking beside the canal viaduct that crossed over a river below. The walk was relatively short at only 5.4klm but it had so many lovely and new features for us this trip to make it very enjoyable.
Leck Beck in Lancashire, just 45 minutes away, was our walk for the day. Our backup walk was the Erratics near Austwick. So, with no idea what all that meant we arrived in the church grounds of a speck of a village, Leck, to have a look at its Beck. The fog was slowly lifting when we pulled in and we set off wondering what the heck is Leck Beck. 
At one stage we came across an enormous flock of grouse doing very well on a support program set up for them. They did tend to try and hide in the long grass beside the path we were following before taking flight in a noisy flurry as we came within a metre or two of them. There were lots of screams from both bird and human for quite a while. 
Holy cow.. great read.. xx
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