Breathless Hikers

And what a perfect weather day it was as well.  We started the day leaving Leighton reservoir behind us following a path through some farm land, dropping down to a plantation and then to a stream with a little bridge over it.

We then climbed steeply back up hill, grumbling about the steepness whilst being attacked by trees (you have to watch those branches, they move fast).  This was however, our fourth Dale, Colsterdale.

We continued through a lot of farm lands which meant navigating lots of different types of stiles.  I have to be honest here, I hate stiles, and this walk has had lots of stiles.

Much debate was then entered into on the walk as the book mentioned a handsome old stone gate post.  We were trying to decide what made the gate post handsome.  Are there even ugly gate posts?  Anyway I’ll let you be the judge and decide if it is handsome or not.

Anyway more stiles and then we hit a bog!  Rachel went right into it with filth up over her boots.  Thankfully we all pack bog socks so we can deal with wet boots so it was a quick change of socks at this point and a walk down hill to Ellingstring. 

Ellingstring is where we stopped for our lunch.  Which was also where talking to a local we heard about an ice cream parlour. Luckily our route took us right past the ice cream parlour where we had to stop.  They had something like 25 different flavours of ice cream.  This was our fifth Dale of the walk, Wensleydale.

After leaving the ice-cream parlour we followed the path to Jervaulx Abbey.  Apparently Jervaulx Abbey was the original home of Wensleydale cheese. 

Upon leaving the Abbey grounds we then started to follow the river Ure.  This was a beautiful area. This was the start of what felt like a very long river path walk.  It lasted 4 miles and once we passed Cover Bridge we followed the river Cover. 

The river Cover is quite cool and there are large patches of limestone paving exposed in the river.  This however marked the final Dale we would be visiting, Coverdale.

It was along this stretch that I could no longer wear my boots.  The Compeed can only do so much.  Luckily I had been carrying my trail shoes, so footwear changed and my boots were strapped to my rucksack.  We then headed up the hill through some woods where the bluebells were out. 

After walking to the top of the hill we got an amazing view over Middleham castle.

We knew we were then a short walk to the end of the trail.  Six Dales trail complete. I still think my favourite day was day 3, but day 4 was a strong contender. 

19.5km and a nice walk.

https://explore.osmaps.com/route/25310475/Six-Dales-trail-day-4