After a couple of weeks of staying at home – and writing! – Mum and I have been on two more Big Adventures with our lovely friends from Red Bus Days Out.
The first one took us into the Yorkshire Dales National Park, our Favourite Place In The Whole Wide World.
We set out early on a beautiful Autumn day with bright sunshine, a cloudless blue sky and just enough of a chill in the air to make the long distance views crystal clear.
Our first stop was Ilkley to pick up the last two passengers, then we went on down Wharfedale to Otley from where we went over the tops to Greenhow. Mum says she spent a lot of time there when she was younger, helping to survey the remains of the old lead mines and visiting the Miners’ Arms.
She also says that in those days Greenhow was the nearest thing we had to a ghost town in Yorkshire with some houses standing empty and looking derelict. It’s been all poshed up now, however, and looks quite pretty, but the Miners’ Arms has gone, along with all the old characters and many of the friends she used to drink with there, which made her feel a bit sad (and a bit old as it’s fifty years since she first went there, but don’t tell her I said that!)
She soon cheered up, however, when we went a little further along the road to Pateley Bridge and stopped at the Toft Gate Barn Cafe where they make cherry scones to die for – large, light and fluffy and absolutely stuffed full of cherries. They also had some fabulous-looking cakes, but Mum didn’t have room for cake as well so early in the day.
After that we turned around and headed over the moors where the heather was just fading from purple to reddish-brown as far as the eye could see. We passed Stump Cross Caverns and the village of Hebden and were then back in Wharfedale, which is our favourite of all the dales. We followed the valley up past Kilnsey Crag and Kettlewell,
then on to Buckden, which is another place with fifty years’ worth of happy memories for Mum – and the background for much of When Daffodils Bloom, the novel she’s working on at the moment.
From Buckden we took the road through Hubberholme and followed the infant river Wharfe over Langstrothdale Chase, before going over the lonely but lovely Fleet Moss with its great views of the upper dales. From there we went down the well-named Deepdale and into the busy little market town of Hawes, home to the Dales Countryside Museum and the Wensleydale Creamery.
This time we went to the Creamery as we know they make a lovely lunch there. Mum chose roast chicken breast, served on rosti potatoes and covered with Wensleydale-cheese-and-leek sauce – what else? – plus red cabbage, carrots and broccoli. She also had a large glass of wine and a raspberry-and-lemon-curd pavlova, while I looked on enviously. Then we’d just time to stock up on Wensleydale cheese, before getting back on the coach for the second part of our journey.
Follow my next blog: 007. A Day In The Yorkshire Dales Part II
01/10/2018
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 