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Friday 7th April 2006
13 miles
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
We had a lovely breakfast at Heather Cottage and Angela made us packed lunches. Alan from Discovery Travel arrived at 9.15am and gave us a map and Norman Scholes' guidebook 'The Herriot Way', then we set off. We followed the footpath from Aysgarth to Aysgarth Falls, passing some sheep with baby lambs before reaching the upper falls by the Parish Church and the bridge. We spent some time admiring the three sets of falls - upper, middle and lower - before following the path to Castle Bolton.
We didn't bother to visit the castle (described by Scholes as 'the best preserved fortified manor house in the country), but we had a cup of coffee and a cereal bar sitting on a bench on the (very pretty) village green. Then we followed the lane up to the moor. At Dent House we decided to follow the Herriot Way path to the left rather than taking the shorter path direct to Grinton. We walked past old lead mine workings, with occasional hail showers, and we stopped for lunch using part of a spoil heap as a picnic table - it was a lovely lunch, but too cold to stop for long. Then we carried on walking along the track to the summit and beyond.
We turned right to follow a line of grouse butts, at which point things got rather complicated because (1) the path was rather difficult to find and wet under foot; (2) they were heather-burning and we had to go rather close to the fires. Anyway, we survived, safe if a little smoked! We joined a newly made track and followed it, with superb views down to Swaledale. Eventually, after considerably more than the 1km implied by Scholes, we reached a 'substantial shooting box' and celebrated by having a cup of coffee and an apple. The weather was now very pleasant, but my left knee was complaining a bit and I felt tired.
Thankfully neither the ascent to High Harker Hill nor the descent into Grinton was difficult, and the scenery was glorious. There were more lambs and some pretty villages too. We passed the Youth Hostel (the end of the first day's walk in the guidebook) and moved on to Day 2 for the walk into Grinton and then across meadows by the river to Reeth.
We sat on a bench on Reeth's pretty village green to work out the way to our B&B, Cambridge House, then walked the 1/4 mile out of the village to find it. Cambridge House is another lovely B&B - like Heather Cottage it is recently renovated, though it is slightly bigger (5 rooms instead of 2). Our room, on the second floor, had super views down to Reeth and in the evening we walked back to the village for a meal at the Buck Hotel. The bar was full so we ate in the (large) restaurant, but we had it entirely to ourselves. It was raining hard when we walked back to Cambridge House around 9pm.
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