UK. 2019.

Yorkshire Dales.

Dent

We'd arranged to meet our friends Paul and Jella at Dent in the Yorkshire Dales before carrying on to Hawes where Paul was taking a melodian course. After that they went back to the Lake District and we spent another week in th Dales.

Dent caravan park. Our van looks tiny compared to Paul and Jella's Winnebago!

Plenty of room in Bertha (their winnebago) for all of us to sit and have a meal.

Dent is a lovely old village with some very narrow cobbled streets.

On our way to Hawes e had a lovely view of the Dent valley.

We then stopped at Dent station which is the highest mainline station in England and is on the Settle to Carlisle line. The buildings are now self-catering accommodation.

Hawes

The melodian course was held at Hawes Countryside Museum. Hawes is in Wensleydale, which is probably the most famous of the Dales and we were able to park in the car park for the weekend.

On Saturday morning we had a look around the museum which had plenty of exhibits showing the past history of the area, primarily farming and mining.

On Saturday afternoon, while Paul was at his course, the rest of us went for a walk to Hardraw. To get to the Falls (the highest single drop waterfall in England) you have to go through the Green Dragon pub and they charge £2.50 per person so we decided not to bother.

Jella and Gracie.

Crossing the RIver Ure, to the North of Hawes.

Richmond

We spend a couple of hours visiting Richmond Castle which is at the eastern end of the Dales.

There were great views of the town centre from the top of the tower.

The castle overlooks the River Swale.

Upper Wharfedale

This is probably one of the lesser-known Dales so we managed to find a lovely farm campsite. We had fantastic weather and were able to get out walking and cycling and had BBQs every day!

Our campsite at Buckden.

Burgers for our evening meal.

From Buckden we walked up the hill and had a great view of the valley with the village of Starbottom below us.

A small herd of belted Galloway cows on the hillside.

After a pint at the pub in Starbottom we walked back alongside the River Wharfe to our campsite.

The following day we drove to Kettlewell, parked up in the National Parks car park and then cycled to Grassington and back.

Nice quiet back roads.

Grassington.

Malham

Malham has to be one of the most popular area of the Yorkshire Dales and one that we've visited on several occasions but not for several years so we parked up, walked to Malham Cove and then up the cliff and along the valley to Malham Tarn.

There's no waterfall at the cliff, the water appears out of a small cave at the bottom of the cliff. Much of the Dales is made up of limestone so water is often to be found underground and has created lots potholes and caves in the area. As a teenager Kevin often used to come potholing with the Scouts to this area.

Malham Beck

There's a new path to the top of the Cove. Looking back down the valley towards Malham village.

Near Malham Tarn this stream disappears underground. For many years it was thought to be the river that appeared at the bottom of the Cove but it actually enters Malham Beck further downstream.

The cave at the bottom of the cliff.

From the top of the Cove we followed the dry river upstream for a few kilometres.

Malham is a pretty little village with Malham Beck flowing though it. There's a large car park on the outskirts of the village.

Ribblehead Viaduct.

The Ribblehead viaduct is was built between 1870 and 1874 during the construction of the 72 mile stretch of the Settle to Carlisle railway. The viaduct is 400m (440 yards) long with 24 arches spanning across Batty Moss. During construction the navies were housed in camps close to the viaduct – Sebastopol, Belgravia and Batty Wife Hole.

1. Burston hill, Grafham Water, Ringstead and The Chiltern Hills.

2. Yorkshire Dales.

3. Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland and Woodend, Cumbria.

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Kevin is next to one of the pillars and gives an idea of the scale of the engineering task required to build this viaduct.