While we were eating our lunch in Hawes, the weather began to change and grey clouds streamed in from the west, gradually covering the blue sky and the sun. This was a bit of a shame as the next part of our journey took us over the hills from Wensleydale towards Ribblehead and should have given us fantastic views of the famous Three Peaks – Ingleborough, Pen-y-Ghent and Whernside. Instead, the top of each one was hidden under a cap of cloud and, though it wasn’t actually raining, it looked about to do so at any minute.
We made a brief stop for photographs near the Ribblehead viaduct, but the light wasn’t very good and even that mighty, stone-built structure seemed to blend into its surroundings, despite being 440 yards long and 104 feet high at its highest point as its 24 arches carry the Settle-Carlisle railway over Batty Moss.
Setting off again, we made our way down Ribblesdale as far as Langcliffe, from where the real adventure started as we went over a narrow, steep and twisty road to Malham. In fact, it was the sort of road where we all kept breathing in to try and make the coach a bit narrower. (Mum said she did the same thing many years ago when she once drove over there – and she was in a Mini!)
As we crossed Malham Moor, we saw Malham Tarn and then the 230 foot high Malham Cove in the distance as we dropped down into the valley again.
Malham Tarn
Malham Cove
But once more the light was too poor for good photographs and so we had to cheat and stop at the National Park Centre in Malham to buy postcards. While we were in there, we also had a look at the books they were selling and Mum was delighted to see one about the mines at Malham which was written by two people she knew with a little help from herself.
From Malham we set off back towards Skipton and on the way we went past the church of St Michael and All Angels in the village of Kirkby Malham, where – so Mum told me – there’s a grave with a little stream running through it. Buried in it are a man and his wife, but, as the story goes, they were separated by water for much of their married life as he was in the army and so his wife decided that they’d also be separated by water after they died. But the story also says that when the man died, the gravedigger found solid rock where his grave should have been and so he was buried at the same side of the water as his wife after all…
Soon we were back in Skipton and a perfect day was almost over. The only thing that spoilt it a little bit was the weather in the afternoon, but Mum says that’s the price we have to pay for living in the hills. She also says it’s worth every penny, but I’m not so sure, because when it’s damp my fur goes frizzy and Mum won’t lend me her hair-straighteners as she says I might singe my paws. Sometimes she can be a bit mean!
Follow my next blog: 008. A TRIP AROUND EMMERDALE COUNTRY
01/10/2018
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 