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| Burnsall bridge and Wharfedale |
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| Best bike award - Grassington |
Having walked the Dales Way from Ilkley to Lake Windermere
in 2009, it seemed only appropriate to visit once again to take in the
territory planned for the opening of the 2014 Tour de France. The Dales Way is 83 miles long and it took us
about six days. On day one of Le Tour
the boys in Lycra were going to cover 131 miles in a clockwise circular route
from Leeds to Harrogate. The atmosphere,
when we reached Burnsall in Wharfedale, was terrific. Everywhere, Yorkshire’s oldest bicycles had
been dragged from shed and storeroom, painted yellow, and put on display. Sadly we missed seeing the sheep that some
farmers had painted in the colours of the tour jerseys – yellow, green, and
white with red polka dots. Yorkshire
tourist authority had recreated their logo of a ram’s head on a hillside –
entirely made out of shorn fleeces.
Settle and Copper Dragon breweries had produced their own special beers
for the occasion, Golden Fleece Tour de Yorkshire and Hill Hammer
respectively. Both excellent – I can
vouch for it.
Settling in to the Devonshire Fell in Burnsall, we quickly set
off to walk the Monks’ Road known as Mastiles Lane. This green road leading over the moors from
Wharfedale to Malhamdale is part of an ancient system of routes that the
wealthy monks from Ripon would take to walk over into their vast estates in the
Southern parts of the Dales. It later
found use as a drove road, and detouring off it to the south brings you to one
of the most inaccessible hamlets in Yorkshire – Bordley – consisting of two
farmhouses. Throughout our walk we had
only some raptors and lapwings for company.
Fortunately, the daylight in Yorkshire is noticeably longer than in
Poole in late June and we were able to do a six mile circuit before returning
to an excellent meal and a bottle of New Zealand chardonnay (Muddy Water 2011
for future reference). Total walk
distance about six miles due to a detour to avoid some cows.
On Tuesday 1st July, we set out early for Malham,
which looked beautiful in brilliant morning sunlight, the lovely steeply humped
stone bridge crossing the Malham beck which whirls and bobbles its way on down
to become the beginning of the river Aire.
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| Malham Beck in the morning sunshine |
Our circular route took us south across the fields, spotting a heron
drying its wings in the sunshine by the beck, before turning east and north
again to Janet’s Foss, a pretty natural waterfall. A dipper hopped from rock to rock in the foss,
clinging to near vertical moss covered surfaces on the falls. On emerging from Janet’s Foss, the path
directs north to Gordale Scar, an impressive natural gorge dramatized by the
Lakeland poets. A lower and a higher
falls are accessible to rock climbers, but we decided against going directly up
the gorge. At moments like these I
always think of Boswell and Johnson and their trip to Scotland. On Skye, despite proximity to a fine hill
immediately behind their dwelling, Boswell noted ‘The hill behind the house we
did not climb...’ and I take heart from
this in places like Gordale Scar. We
detoured up a steep enough ascent, which gave fine views into the scar, and
then set out across the bleak upland plateau which takes one to Malham Tarn,
England’s highest freshwater lake, beloved of Charles Kingsley.
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| Gordale Scar seen from the detour |
En route today we occasionally came across
schoolchildren, clutching their clipboards, on the end of term school
trip. What a nightmare for the teachers! Across the moorland we became aware of
numerous bright little birds – wheatears – which were identified for us by the
RSPB group at Malham Cove. Walking south
from Malham Tarn, the moor descends into the famous dry valleys, finally
emerging on a high plateau, Malham Cove, and the remarkable limestone
pavements, with a spectacular view down into Malhamdale. This enormous ledge is a part of the same
fault – the Craven fault – which created Gordale Scar. Peregrine falcons nest on the cliffs. The curving limestone cliff, which falls
abruptly 260 feet sheer into Malhamdale, was used in the Harry Potter movies. The Lister Arms provided an excellent final
destination with the aforementioned Golden Fleece pale ale. Distance about ten miles.
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| Limestone pavement, Malham Cove |
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| Malham dale, seen from the Cove |
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| Malham Cove |
Wednesday 2nd July. A long drive to Horton in Ribblesdale. Ideally we would have done the Pen y Ghent
climb and circular walk from Litton, which is closer by road. But this is a good 14 miles and Lindsay
didn’t feel her feet or her shin splints were up to it. So we did the shorter route. At least it allowed us to come back by the
famous Ribblehead viaduct and Hawes, with a venture over into Wensleydale and a
return over the pass (Le Cote de Cray as the guide calls it) into Wharfedale
which Le Tour would be ascending on the 5th of July. The weather was beautiful at the start –
sunny, blue sky, etc. Having forgotten
our maps and guidebooks we had to buy yet another in the tourist information
shop at Horton. We also chatted to a
very professional looking walker, kitted out in a black outfit which reminded
one of the Paris riot police. He had two
Springer spaniels with him, all of them looking rather fit. He came from Scunthorpe and spoke broad
Yorkshire. Starting out on the route
which leads to the northeast up part of the Pennine Way, we detoured to Hull
Pot, an enormous hidden hole on the hillside; the water far below could be
heard murmuring into the ground. Then
the ascent of Pen y Ghent from the West, turning south to reach the trig
point. At the top we found our friend
with his dogs, having ascended the direttissima. He advised us about the direct descent over
the cliffs to the south and enquired whether we were doing all three
peaks. Answer: ‘no’. ‘Yer can doo it in twelve hour’, he
observed. ‘I would have dun it meself
‘cept I got ‘ere a bit lait.’ We were to
meet him finally back in the car park where he averred that he ‘were pleased
that yer enjoyed thissen.’ We climbed
carefully over the cliffs, descended on the Pennine Way, then turned right to come
back past some more ‘shake holes’ and Dub Cote farm. Meeting other walkers in Yorkshire on the way
down, accompanied by the inevitable ‘Ow do’ and a ‘Hi’ from us. It allowed us to be back in time to change
for dinner in the excellent Burlington Restaurant of the Devonshire Arms at
Bolton Abbey. Distance about 7½ miles.
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| Horton-in-Ribblesdale station with Pen y Ghent |
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| Selfie with Pen y Ghent |
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| King and Queen of the Mountains |
Thursday 3rd July. Drive to Appletreewick (pronounced
Aptrick). We would have walked it but
anticipated that we needed an early start to get to Leeds for the opening
ceremony of Le Tour at the First Direct Arena.
We had a marvellous walk up a hidden gem – Trollers Gill, above
Skyreholme. A hidden valley, to the west
of the estate of Percevall Hall, and then a tricky ascent up the stones of the
Gill, past the old lead and fluorite mines, and back over the plateau to the
Craven Arms in Appletreewick, ‘Gateway to the Ales’. A quick Theakstons and then it was time to
head for Leeds. Walking distance about
six miles.
We were fortunate to reach the Merrion Centre car park just
after 2pm. Thereafter it rapidly filled
up. The atmosphere in Leeds was abuzz
with pre Tour activity. Trick cycling
demonstrations, bands, steel bands, and sales stalls. We walked around the centre and passed some
time by visiting the Leeds City Art Gallery.
An exquisite ceiling in the cafe.
Although small, the gallery has a good collection of many 19th
and 20th century works, from pre-Raphaelites via Atkinson Grimshaw
to Corot, Impressionists and Fauves.
There are a couple of beautiful Sisleys and a very characteristic
Derain. The 20th century
collection is perhaps ‘to be discussed’ or ‘shall we re-evaluate in 100 years’
time?’ A Damien Hirst catches the eye,
mainly because it is one of those works that one feels one could have painted
oneself, and a few other works that look representative of one’s children’s
efforts (Castle Court School, circa 1994).
In the ground floor galleries, there is an exhibition of what looked
like Mondrian, but turned out to be by an associate, Marion (‘call me Marlow
because I don’t really want to be female’) Moss. Her main contribution to geometric art turned
out to be the double line, which Piet Mondrian himself had not thought of. There were some strange photographs by a
strange woman who lived in Jersey in the first half of the 20th
Century (Claude Cahun).
Back to the First Direct arena. The opening ceremony was supposed to have
been modelled on the 2012 Olympics, but was not quite as lavish
(understatement). The opening with Opera
North and local children was effective, but we should have had more of it. A trio of Yorkshire presenters did their best
to do the warm up, but with an hour to kill it was a bit difficult for
them. There were some unmemorable bike
films. The two main presenters, Jill
Douglas (ITV sports commentator) and Sebastien Piquet (the voice of Radio Tour)
did the team presentations. Between each
team a short clip showed some Yorkshire stalwart doing Yorkshire things
(Sheffield steelman, Scarborough street cleaner, etc) and ended with them
saying ‘Bienvenue à Yorkshire... Welcome
to Yorkshire’. Since there are 22 teams
they had a few breaks for music, Kimberley Walsh (very pregnant) and some chap
from Yorkshire sang ‘The Road’, the theme for this year’s tour, which sounds a
bit like John Denver’s Country Roads...
The chief exec of the Yorkshire effort gave a speech. Christian Prudhomme, the race director gave a
short but fine speech, in English, and used the phrase ‘God’s County’ to
describe Yorkshire, which predictably went down well. The organizers missed a trick because there
were some well known people in the audience who weren’t introduced, e.g. Lizzie
Armitstead and former multiple Tour winner Bernard Hinault. The formal event ended with the introduction
of Yorkshire’s own pop Megastars, Embrace.
They sang some of their top hits – I knew none of them except the first
one which I gather is called something like ‘Nature’s Life’ and has a memorable
chorus which goes ‘Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh’.
Unfortunately as soon as they came on people started leaving in droves
(perhaps they’d heard them before) and although the final set was only half an
hour before it all ended, the hall was half full by the time we left. No news is good news however, and it meant
that we had easy exit from the car park and a trouble free journey back to
Burnsall, through the darkening Dales, where we relaxed with a drink before
bedtime.
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| Leeds Town Centre |
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| Chris Froome and the Sky team |
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| Appletreewick - pronounced 'Aptrick' |
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| Burnsall |
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| Swinden Quarry |
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| Malham |
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| Bienvenue a Bainbridge, Wensleydale |
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| Near Hawes |
So that’s about it from God’s county. Glad we went.
Would have loved to have been at the race as well, but we’ll be back in
Yorkshire, no doubt. Gutted for
Cavendish on day one, but both days in Yorkshire were held in good weather with
fantastic scenery...
