Perfect Dales drives

Dales barbon1There’s a fabulous 360-degree Dales view from Stone Rigg at the head of Barbondale. If ever you want to know why more parts of this area have been roped into the revised Yorkshire Dales National Park then this is the place to go. Standing on the small rocky outcrops at the top of Stone Rigg – just a short walk from the steep, narrow road from Dent – you see the Howgills to the north. The lower end of the Howgill range is already in the park but further north towards Ravenstonedale is rightly being included later this year. Swinging right you stare across at Aye Gill Pike and down Dentdale to Great Knoutberry, then on to the western slopes of Great Coum and Crag Fell.

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Looking north to the Howgills
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From the head of Barbondale down Dentdale to great Knoutberry

At 180 degrees you’re looking down Barbondale itself with the steep side of Middleton Fell glaring down on your right. I’ve been here several times before and never tire of the all-round beauty. Further down the narrow dale heading towards Barbon is a little boundary stone which signals the end of the current park. The lower slopes of the dale become thickly wooded before it opens out to reveal some glorious views along Lunesdale.

Later in the week I also revisited another part of the new park, heading up Mallerstang and stopping off at the enigmatic 12th-century Pendragon Castle. The view down towards Wild Boar Fell was, as always, a pleasure to see.

pendragFrom the castle it was on towards Nateby. Gypsies were camped ready for the final part of their annual journey to Appleby – it seemed an appropriate spot for their camp and surely much more of a pleasure for the horses than beside the busy A65 (where they’ve been causing enormous traffic jams). I love the journey between Nateby and Keld through Birkdale. Here is a very different Dales character to my normal Ribblesdale habitat: bleak and rough; fewer walls and tougher sheep. But you’re soon into a greener Upper Swaledale; enclosed by steep sides but gentler, with the young Swale dancing over exposed browned bedrock. A grand drive over Buttertubs Pass to Wensleydale, up Widdale and home via Three Peaks country of Ribblesdale. I might not be exercising my legs much at the moment but my eyes are certainly active.

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The bleak and lonely moors of Birkdale

I wonder, had Kirby Misperton fallen within their land, if the Dales National Park would have allowed last week’s fracking fiasco to happen? Seven councillors who are supposed to represent Yorkshire on matters of planning, ignored the 92 per cent of locals and instead pandered to what the government wanted them to do – a government which is currently keeping secret a report on whether fracking causes climate concern. Hell, even Lancastrian councillors had the sense to boot out the get-rich-quick fracking cowboys. Hang your heads, seven shameless Yorkshiremen.

Which brings me on to another whinge I have, stirred up by this week’s ‘news’. There’s a decline, says a study, in the humber of people using regional accents. It seems we are all starting to sound like we come from the south east. That certainly won’t do. And some teachers have been told to change the way they speak to children by cutting down on local accents. Sometimes I listen to people in their late teens/early 20s, using that very boring generic university accent, in which almost every sentence seems to end with a question mark, and I thank mi Mam n Dad for teaching me to speyk Yorksher.

Talking of moaning – an acquaintance was moaning about pot-holes in Ribblesdale’s roads the other week. This week he is moaning that ‘they’ are closing the roads throughout the region to mend those potholes. Now I’m moaning about him moaning.

Bridge of Sighs

Dales bridge1I was very saddened to see that someone had a go at demolishing the pretty packhorse bridge over the Ribble at Knight Stainforth this week. Obviously, the person didn’t go out to deliberately wreck the ancient structure – whether it was caused by someone using a sat nav instead of a brain cell, or by careless driving, I don’t know. But it’s going to be costly to repair the National Trust-owned bridge. The original stonework is going to have to be recovered from the river before it is washed away, and the bridge will probably not look the same when rebuilt. It wasn’t meant to take motorised traffic. I realise this will inconvenience a few local users but I think the current diversion via Stackhouse Lane or Helwith Bridge should be made permanent and the bridge left for cyclists and pedestrians only. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that during the Bank Holiday weekend, which brings all kinds of folk to Stainforth Foss, we don’t see more damage or accidents.

Dales foss

Better Dales news

After all that misery I should finish on some high notes. The British Mountaineering Council, through its Mend our Mountains campaign has raised more than £12,000 for the Yorkshire Dales National Park authority project to help improve footpaths on Ingleborough. More details here
http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/living-and-working/how-we-can-help/press-office/news/recent/crowdfunding-boost-for-three-peaks

Dales ramsons2It’s been a pleasure hobbling around Ribblesdale this week while spring really blossomed. By the Ribble in Langcliffe were thousands of rampant ramsons like riotious football fans charging down the packed terrace, hopping over the fencing and spilling on to the pitch.

Dales garlic

Dales locksribbleSitting here listening to the birds and a gently trickling river was simply beautiful. However, one youngster licking its lips as it approached me was a little disconcerting…Dales lick

Seeing red (and black-and-white) in Ribblesdale

Ribblesdale - postbox1

Funny how we take everyday things for granted. Postboxes for example. On my regular Ribblesdale stroll this week I noticed snowdrops growing by a postbox — and have to admit that until I’d seen both snowdrops and postbox together I’d not taken much notice of that bright red metal thing. It got me thinking about other postboxes around the Dales. I hunted through my photo archive for some more examples … and found these in Chapel-le-dale, Langstrothdale (above) and Mallerstang.ribblesdale postbox2

Ribblesdale postbox3ribblesdale postbox4If you know of any postboxes in picturesque Dales locations let me know – I might do a bit of ‘collecting’ myself. Apparently there is such a thing as the Letter Box Study Group www.lbsg.org with a website and more than 600 members. I shan’t be joining, but surely taking photos of postboxes is more acceptable than searching the country to capture gas holders? I read this week about one chap who has this as a hobby. His pastime came to the notice of the newspapers when it was decided that the famous gas holder beside the Oval cricket ground in London (yes, non-cricket fans, it really is famous) is to be saved from demolition because it is seen as some kind of icon. Historic England adds: ‘…but our other beautiful gas holders are going’ [to be demolished]. Beautiful? Come on! Seems it is acceptable to churn up hundreds of miles of priceless countryside for the pointless HS2 railway, and to allow our green and pleasant land to be fracked up to kingdom come, but not to knock down a rusting, useless gas holder? It’s a mad, mad world.

Ribblesdale sunsets

ribblesdale sunset1

Took my first sunset shots of the year last Sunday up on Winskill Stones in Ribblesdale. The late evening sunshine lit up the limestone and also the distant western side of Penyghent. The last few minutes before the sun disappeared over Lancashire provided some startlingly vivid colours.

ribblesdale sunset2

The following time-lapse shots are a bit arty-farty for me, I know, but I display them only to show the speed of the water at Stainforth Foss on Tuesday following heavy overnight and morning rain in Ribblesdale. The shutter speed is set at just one-fifth of a second which tells you much about the volume and speed of the water passing in front of my camera lens. If you’d like to join me for a couple of minutes at the popular spot you can see a video here https://youtu.be/Agba6D6Txvg Excuse the quality — it’s taken on my normal camera not a video camera, and I was being buffeted by a strong wind.

foss2

foss1

stjohn

langsnowAfter the rain came Wednesday’s snow. The village (Langcliffe) took on a different persona — cosier, somehow. The photo of St John’s church (above) looks like a black-and-white, but it isn’t. And despite seeing them a thousand times before, I just had to take a trip further up Ribblesdale to see how the Three Peaks were looking in the snow – and they didn’t disappoint.

sledingle

whernsnow

pygmarch

This week I’ve had to endure one of life’s greatest hardships. It’s not been easy for me, especially living on my own. Having no kids or partner around to help out has been a total nightmare. Yes, the TV remote broke. Getting up to manually change channels or just to turn the damn thing on and off has left me exhausted and frustrated. Must be the batteries (the remote’s, not mine) I thought, so off I trotted in the snow in search of power. Alas, new batteries didn’t solve the problem. So, another trip to town for a replacement zapper — no one had anything suitable for my TV. Amazon it was then. Three days delivery they said. Aargh! Just how did folk manage before remote controllers?

thornsold

Regular readers will know of my fondness for the deserted Ribblesdale hamlet of Thorns (pictured above), just a mile or so from Ribblehead Viaduct. Thorns was an important location on a former packhorse route. Records of the settlement I often visit for quiet contemplation, date back to 1190, when it belonged to Furness Abbey. Wills, parish records and censuses indicate that there were five tenements in 1538, three households in 1841, and one uninhabited dwelling in 1891. Those stats are courtesy of the charity Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) which this week announced it was looking for budding archaeologists to take part in an archaeological survey of Thorns. Visit the website www.ydmt.org for more information.

Yesterday was my birthday. It’s the 63rd time this as occurred so I’m used to birthdays and I don’t take much notice of them now. However, I must admit I was a bit taken aback when I read that a birthday flypast tribute by the Red Arrows had been arranged. How pleasing too that my big day was also the 80th birthday of the Spitfire and I could share my special display with that great invention.

Ribble Rant

The village school closed back in 2007. It was sold six years later for £230,000 and remains unoccupied, the new owners’ plans being refused permission by the National Park. I’ve often wondered who pocketed the money and what was done with it. What I do know for certain is that some accountant somewhere declared that the school as an education establishment was ‘economically unviable’ and shut it down. Its closure certainly wouldn’t have been decided by locals or teaching staff. Village schools help keep dales communities together – but that’s not something an accountant working on behalf of government can quantify in monetary terms so it is ignored.
I know a lot of teachers – or more precisely ex-teachers (many of them jumping ship as soon as their pensions would allow them to do so) – and I’m probably more sympathetic to the plight of teachers and how the education system is being run than a lot of the general public. I attended teacher training college before finding an opening in journalism and I was married to a teacher for many years. So I’ve kept an eye on education matters – as we all should, really … after all, this is the country’s and our children’s/grandchildren’s future we’re talking about.
The problems and solutions are far too numerous and complex for me to go into in depth here. But I will say that I wish politicians would just leave alone something about which they know and understand very little. Many of them attended expensive private schools which bear no co-relation with the education of the masses. Most have no idea about the everyday life of teaching a class or running a school, yet ministers (and accountants) decide the rules and regulations by which our children are educated. I have the feeling that government would prefer if teachers just brainwashed children so that they don’t have any individual thoughts, or think creatively or question their elders.

One of my singer/songwriter heroes is Tom Paxton, and this week I listened again to one of his songs from the 1960s, called ‘What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?’. The verses, although based on the USA at the time, could well ring true today in this country and elsewhere. Here are some of the words which his little boy said in response to the question:

I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody’s free.
And that’s what the teacher said to me.

I learned that policemen are my friends.
I learned that justice never ends.
I learned that murderers die for their crimes.
Even if we make a mistake sometimes.

I learned our government must be strong.
It’s always right and never wrong.
Our leaders are the finest men.
And we elect them again and again.

I learned that war is not so bad.
I learned of the great ones we have had.
We fought in Germany and in France.
And some day I might get my chance.

That’s what I learned in school today.

Dales images 2015, fracking hell, litter louts, curlews calling

dales images viaduct
I wrapped up warm and headed for the the head of Ribblesdale on Sunday to see what the snow was like and hopefully capture some more Dales images. Obviously, the top photo was not taken last weekend, but I just couldn’t bide having yet another grey-sky shot to kick off the blog. To greet me at the gate of Ingleborough National Nature Reserve was a large brown bag from McDonalds left by some inconsiderate half-wit. It included containers of partly-eaten food. The nearest outlet is more than 30 miles away from Ribblehead, and I wondered just how many bins the moron passed on his/her way to the beauty spot. I put the rubbish in my car boot, took it home and binned it – not too difficult a task – but I certainly wasn’t ‘loving it’. Ice and a cold wind didn’t lighten my mood but at least I didn’t encounter any rain – for at least an hour or so.

dales images icyquarry

A few outdoor types also leave evidence of their presence in the Dales. I read this week on www.grough.co.uk that a group put together by Kuta Outdoors bagged 16 sacks of rubbish on a clean-up around the Yorkshire Three Peaks route. Kuta Outdoors, who take groups along the Three Peaks routes several times a year, organised the litter pick with people who had walked alongside the company in the past raising money for various charities. Company owner Phil Lee said: “If everyone who comes to the Three Peaks picked up a bit of litter when they saw it, the peaks would stay clean all season.” Well done Phil and the litter-pickers but you really shouldn’t have to do this.

Curlew calling for help

The call of the curlew comforts me. It’s one of the signposts that reminds me I’m tramping the Yorkshire moors. I listen and watch out for the bird from April as it nests around here, and I’ve been known to follow the Ribble to dales images curlewMorecambe, where it spends the winter, to watch it paddling about in the bay. Sadly, the curlew is now on the RSPB’s ‘Red List’ of endangered species www.rspb.org.uk  They say the problem is caused by changes in upland management and increased predation. Nature is so finely balanced. Too often we forget we’re not the only species on Earth. I snatched this photo of a curlew as it carried out a fly-past over my head while I was walking between Helwith Bridge and Silverdale earlier this year.

images ribbscar

Trees please

I won’t be sending Christmas cards this year. Instead I’ll be making a small donation to the Woodland Trust. Sorry if that sounds like I’ve a bit of a ‘holier than thou’ attitude. I also think that dedicating a tree to someone is better than giving them a box of Quality Street – bet you’re glad you’re not on my Christmas list. The Woodland Trust does a great job campaigning against indiscriminate felling of trees and saving ancient woodland. Above, trees on Stainforth Scar; below, Gisburn Forest.

dales images gisburn

Wow! Amazing!

I’ve been a fan of Nature and outdoors programmes on TV for many years but I must admit to tiring of them now. Constant dumbing down; the way they give us a five-minute chunk of a story then ‘come back to it later’ really frustrates me. ‘Experts’ are given the shortest time possible to explain things properly so that OTT presenters can ‘have a go’ – I really don’t give a damn if ‘Ellie can milk a llama’ or not. And I’m constantly asking myself what these TV presenters said before they discovered ‘wow’ and ‘amazing’? Must be an age thing.

Fracking hell

Remember the way the Tories heralded their ‘localism’ idea of a few years back? Locals will get to decide on local matters and we’ll all live happily ever after, they claimed. And do you recall how they promised our National Parks and green spaces would remain free from developers and be kept for us all to enjoy? Guess what – they were lying. I’ve watched industrial wind farms spring up all around the Dales and on the edge of the National Park like some giant fence – most being erected against the wishes of the locals. I’ve seen bits of green land gobbled up by developers, again against the wishes of the locals. And now they are allowing more capitalist friends of the government to frack up our countryside. There are parts of the USA and Australia where fracking has taken place on a massive scale; where the consequences have included the contamination of water supplies, toxic waste destroying fertile ground, plants, trees and animal habitats, and huge disruption to the lives of residents. For a map of possible UK fracking sites click here http://frack-off.org.uk/locations/

Dales images 0f 2015

On re-reading this week’s blog, it seems like the persistent damp, grey conditions here in the dale are definitely making me grumpy. At least the bad weather has given me chance to motor on with an idea to portray a year in North Ribblesdale using my snaps. I’m going to be pasting on the site a photo (or two) from every week during 2015, starting this month with Dales images taken between January and April. I’ve not necessarily chosen the best technical or artistic shots, just the ones that tell a story or portray the dale at the time. Hope you enjoy them – May, June, July and August to follow next week (unless we have cracking weather and I’m out and about instead of staring at a computer screen getting even more miserable and political). You can click on the Dales images on the carousel to enlarge (automatically scrolls every 3 seconds). Merry bloody Christmas.

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