Blog (Current)

Blog updates are only on an "ad hoc" basis when I have something to say and will not be particularly regular. Latest entries first.

Pinned Blog Comment

It has been suggested to me by several people that I should charge for my walk information and indeed I have had unsolicited offers of payment (declined) from people who have used my directions. I am flattered that people think the information is worth charging for but I have deliberately chosen to keep it free to encourage walking. If you want to be kind, you could make a donation to the funds to build a bridge over the River Wharfe via the Burley Bridge Association website at http://www.burleybridge.com/donate.html

I live in this Wharfedale village, which is the only one in Wharfedale not to have a bridge to link it to footpaths at the opposite side of the river. Crossing of the river Wharfe, one of the fastest rising in the country, is currently precarious and internmittent, over stepping stones. There has been one campaign or another to have a bridge built for 120 years and finally, there is now a chance, as both North Yorkshire and Bradford Councils' Rights of Way Improvement Plans and the Burley in Wharfedale Neighbourhood Development Plan, adopted by Bradford Council after the village referendum in May 2018, are all in support. However £400,000 is needed to build the bridge and provide a long term fund for maintanance. It will not be funded from council funds.

A bridge will link the south side of the river to footpaths stretching into Nidderdale and beyond. Various fund raising events have been held and more are planned but, as they say, every little helps!

19 August 2020

All my life, when I have needed antibiotics, the answer to the question "are you allergic to penecillin?" has always been "no". I must have taken hundreds of them. On 12 August, doing by bit for the Country, I "ate out to help out". Sat in a pub garden, it seems I was bitten by some insect behind my right ear. I was not aware of it at the time but by evening, the side of my face had gone red. It worsened over the Thursday to the point where on Friday, something needed to be done. Seeing little point in trying to get service via the GP in these covid times, on a Friday, I thought the local minor injuries unit might work.

This is now like Fort Knox! You need a telephone call to get another telephone call with the triage nurse. Clearly not actually wanting to see any patients, he said I might have sepsis and needed a blood test which they could not do (they usually do). I would have to visit A&E.

I turned up at Airedale A&E and have to say I was impressed by their service. Blood was sent to their lab and I got the results before I left. Infection but no sepsis. The net result was a prescription for an antibiotic Co-amoxiclav. This contains Amoxicillin and Clavulanic acid. The former I have taken in the past many times. The latter is, I believe, to accelerate its performance. By Saturday my whole face had swelled allarmingly, with huge bags under the eyes, all a dramatic red colour. Sunday I was back at A&E. The net result is that suddenly, I now seem allergic to penecillin based antibiotics. They prescribed a different antibiotic. My face is slowly subsiding but it has been a pretty traumatic experience.

4 August 2020

The stories about picnickers/revelers leaving litter, disposable BBQs, cans/bottles etc all over the country have become legion and seem to be a strange side effect of the coronavirus issue. I assume it is because the yob element are denied their customary holidays, swilling lager in the foreign sunspots or not working. Obviously, as a lover of the countryside, I abhor all litter and I would expect anyone using my site to feel the same and work on the principle of "leave nothing but footprints". I was therefore disappointed to be emailed by a volunteer litter picker who had come across a PDF sheet of one of my walks amongst the day's "treasure". I will be charitable and assume it had blown out of an overfull litter bin or been accidentally dropped but please, ensure you dispose of litter properly. If bins are full, take it home. As far as cans/bottle/boxes are concerned, you brought them full when they were heavy. They weigh next to nothing when empty, so again, take them home!

30 June 2020

Received an irate email from a farmer two days ago. A couple doing my Beckwithshaw Bimble walk had blocked one of their gateways with a car. When challenged, they said they were only parking as instructed by my site! The farmer asked me to change my instructions forthwith. Needless to say, the offending couple were feeding her BS, as was quickly proven when I sent the farmer a copy of the instructions, which are very clear. If the couple concerned read this, I would appreciate it if you did not try to blame my site when you have forgotten your common sense tablet that day!

I would never tell anyone to park in any gateway and in fact stress the need to keep gates clear in my Etiquette page.

13 June 2020

I have only just learned of The Campaign For Pubs. This is the UK grassroots campaign speaking up for our pubs and campaigning to promote, support and protect our pubs. Pubs are a fundamental part of out society and have a number of disadvantages stacked against them, from ownership by pub companies who are often more interested in the value of the site than the pub itself, to unfair taxation rules. I can speak from the heart when I say that a refreshing pint in a pub is the ending to a walk to which I most look forward. Too many are closing. I have joined The Campaign For Pubs, a not for profit organisation, funded by members and which only costs £25 per year.

The chariman is Paul Crossman, a licensee and pub campaigner based in York. He runs three award-winning community-orientated cask ale pubs, two of which he rescued from pub company disposal and the campaign manager is Greg Mulholland, a long term enthusiast of and campainger for pubs and former MP.

For more information and to join to help save pubs, see https://campaignforpubs.org.uk/

22 May 2020

Following the loosening of Government restrictions on staying at home (see Blog entry for 12 May below), not surprisingly many people want to get out on to the fells again. However there is an understandable pushback from many Yorkshire Dales communities, especially the "honeypots" who fear the influx of visitors may bring the coronavirus to them. Most facilities are closed and possiblty some car parks. I thought it might be useful therefore to put together some walks where parking is away from centres of population and none of the routes pass through any.

I have no knowledge where any farms might (illegally - see Blog entry of 13 April below) have diverted or attempted to close routes. All I can say is, where possible, try to respect landowners' fears. There could be a health worker living at the address!

Beamsley Beacon

Bordley to Malham Cove - a way to visit Malham Cove without parking or passing through Malham village

Kingsdale to Yordas Cave

Malham Tarn Walk

Outershaw Round

Parson's Pulpit and High Proctor Mark

Three Men of Gragareth

Threshfield Quarry Circuit

Upper Barden Round with Rylstone Edge

Whernside - the parking for this walk is in open countryside but it will be especially busy at Bank Holiday/weekends

12 May 2020

With its dropping of the "stay at home" message from its coronavirus campaign and permission for free driving, the Government has potentially opened the floodgates for tourists, including walkers, to flock to the usual places. Given that most facilities remain closed, including car parks, public toilets and accommodation, places such as the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales are clearly signalling that they fear any influx could threaten their populations with infection. Although you are now legally free to visit these areas, I would adopt a "give them a break" approach and spare them from crowds and roads obstructed with parked cars.

13 April 2020

There are reports from various parts of the country of landowners closing footpaths through their property and displaying notices saying this is because of coronavirus. Indeed, I have come across such an instance myself. There is no power under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 for landowners to close or obstruct a public right of way in this way. Indeed, the NFU representing agriculture and horticulture have issued advice to their members to that effect. However, in my case, I foud what turned out to be a better route for the walk I was doing, so there seemed little point risking  unpleasantness. Indeed, for all I knew, a NHS worker could have lived at the address. In current circumstances, I would not take kindly to people coming through my land, so, my policy will be to respect such notices.

See also information from the Ramblers.

Note the position in Wales is slightly different as the Welsh Government has introduced Regulations to close footpaths. Each local authority can decide which footpaths to close, so needless to say, there is variation in different areas. However it is believed there are large scale closures in Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons and Pembrokeshire.

22 March 2020

Well, what a year. Coronavirus has invaded all our lives and put paid to holidays, flights etc. I am in a lockdown by virtue of my age and my heart condition (see My Cabbage and I ). Although I am not by any stretch of the imagination frail, I obviously need to take sensible precautions for myself but in any case, the Government want us all to avoid contact as much as possible. However, I still intend to go walking on the local moors etc and in fact was out there on Rombalds Moor on Friday. The majority of walkers gave each other a sufficiently wide berth to be safe.

One thing though. When you are out walking, you inevitably handle gates, catches on the gates, stiles etc. t therefore makes sense to take hand sanitiser to use before you eat your sandwiches or touch your face - always assuming you can get any of course!

One surprise on the moor was that there was some quite extensive heather burning which I thought had been stopped. Presumably it is still allowed.

Finally it is obvious from news reports and tweets that lots of people are treating the national shut down as a holiday and going off to holiday hot-spots such as the West Country, Snowdonia, Cumbria and Scotland, maybe to walk/climb, maybe to "isolate" in their holiday homes, caravans etc. This is particularly stupid as the NHS in these areas will be mostly geared to the local population numbers. Hoards descending, some of whom will be infected, will spread the coronavirus and the local NHS will probably be overwhelmed. Then you could die! It is incumbent on all of us to play our part in trying to halt this disease. By all means, enjoy walks in your local area, perhaps even a short drive away (although the rules on this seem a bit vague) but don't lumber lesser resourced areas with your disease! You could be infected without yet realising and so infectious to others.

I expect it to be only a matter of time before "lock down" means you literally will not be allowed out of the house, other that for essential shopping. This will only be avoided if people follow the guidance now.

10 March 2020

A pet beef of mine is a strong opposition to so called "smart motorways". How anyone could dream up a system which potentially leaves motorists stranded in a live lane beats me. It is the height of stupidity. That there have been quite a few deaths because of them does not surprise me. One reason I am against them is that I had a fairly new car and one day whilst in the middle lane of the M1, on a section which is now "smart motorway", the engine died completely without warning. Luckily, it was a Sunday, so traffic was fairly light and I was able to declutch and coast to the hard shoulder. However, had the hard shoulder not been there and had there not been a refuge close (which only boils down to how lucky you are!), I would potentially have been a smart motorway victim.

The BBC’s Panorama programme found that there have been twenty times more near-misses on the M25 since the introduction of so-called ‘smart motorways’. This is where the hard shoulder is used as a driving lane. 38 people have been killed on these motorways in 5 years.

A petition has been launched to get these abominations removed. I have signed it and I would encourage all drivers to do the same. See https://www.change.org/p/scrap-dangerous-smart-motorways

3 January 2020

Many of you will have used the public toilets in the centre of Gargrave on the A65, on your way to or from walks in the area or maybe returning from the Lake District. Gargrave Parish Council has funded these Public Toilets for 10 years but can no longer afford to fund them because of serious and urgent demands upon their funds.

The toilets were due to close on the 31st December 2019, however a local group GNAT (Gargrave Needs a Toilet) set up a Go Fund Me page and have received significant help from many members of the community within Craven and further afield.

They have undertaken primary market research into how many users there are an hour on average. They found there to be 20 users per hour, on a cold winter's day!

They have asked me to help publicise the issue and have set up a fundraising link is so you can see how generous people have been so far.

Public toilets are becoming increasingly rare but this one in particular is in important convenience to many of us who pass through this village, not to mention those using the bus stop.

Please give if you can and pass the message on.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/gnat-gargrave-needs-a-toilet

2 January 2020

Firstly, a Happy New Year to everyone visiting my site. I cannot believe how quickly time passes. The tail end of 2019 has not been very productive for walking due to other commitments so my New Year resolution is to do better in 20120.

I have been persevering, albeit slowly, with adding ascent and descent figures to my walks, mainly in case anyone wants to use them to help calculate their walking times. Cumbria, Dorset, Lake District, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Shropshire, Somerset and the Yorkshire dales are complete. All new walks get the information and I will carry on working on the remaining gaps as and when I can.

I hope users of this site continue to find the information useful. There are now over 330 routes. I do welcome any feedback on my walk, or anything else about the site and always reply to emails.

All information on this site is given in good faith and no liability is accepted in respect of any damage, loss or injury which might result from acting on it.