We awoke in our bunk beds. Both of us were a little bleary-eyed, particularly Beth. The previous night, a fierce wind had whipped up outside. We knew this because it had been accompanied by a loud, regular banging. In the midst of this sleep-addling period, we had each come up with our own theories as to what the source of the slamming could be. I, for some reason, had decided that it was a part of the roof being lifted and dropped in the gale. Beth had gone in another direction. She had thought that the alarming man from the evening before had fully flipped, and was now going on the rampage about the place. Thankfully, by the dawn, both of us had come up with more reasonable hypotheses. Beth now thought that it might have been the window banging up and down. As I looked out said window, I noticed that right below, two tired gates hung from their rusty old hinges attached to a tall stone wall; prime candidates for such noises. We will never know for sure which it was.
Whatever, morning was now upon us, and so was day four; the last day. As we rose and went through the now familiar process of sorting out our packs and preparing for the day, the air was tinged with a certain sadness. This marked the beginning of the end, and suddenly we were heading toward the finish line. We had had a lovely time, and neither of us wanted to return to the world outside of it. Yet, there were still several miles ahead of us. Before the great descent back down into the heart of Wensleydale, we must face a testing journey across a wide moor. This was a challenge that I was taking very seriously. On my first loop, the clouds had descended. Visibility had dropped, and the heavy drizzle lay heavy on our clothes. As Dad had looked ahead for some sign of where he hoped we were (this was pre-OS app) to lead his family safely down, Mum had started to go a little doo-lally, singing “I’m just a little fat raindrop”. Because of this, I knew what the day might bring.
Before this however, we had to sneak around the Youth Hostel. We peered around every corner, dashing from corridor to corridor, keen to not run into crazy man. We successfully made it to breakfast and back to our room without any such encounter, and then dashed back to reception, dropped the bag off, and escaped. Once safely out front, we slowed down to say a proper farewell. The view from the courtyard over Swaledale was spectacular in the morning light; the building itself is rather grand too, and yet, it is certainly tired. Looking around, it is clear to see why it had been sold, however sad that might be. We wished it all the best with whatever its next incarnation might be (a wedding venue, apparently), and made our way out and up the drive, at around quarter to nine.
Before we had even reached the road, we felt the first light drizzle hitting our faces. It was also very windy once more, and so as soon as we had reached the road, we stopped and donned our coats. We then stepped out onto the wide, stretching moor – and so the battering began. We were wearing both our warm and waterproof layers, both equally required at this early point of the walk. Still, immediate conditions aside, it was a lovely morning. The little rain that there was largely went rather than came, and there were plenty of sunny spells to bring a little life to the starkly beautiful moor. A little of the purple heather bloom was still visible in the low undergrowth, and throughout this climb up and over we were accompanied by a seemingly endless abundance of little grouse hopping about together without a care.
This section of the walk is, on paper, simple enough. A long stretch far out over the moor, walking parallel with Swaledale, gently rising upward. You then return back across the moor, down a slow decline toward awaiting Wensleydale. However, whilst today did not have the technical difficulty of day two nor the challenging distance of day three, it did provide its own flavour of obstacle. As we gradually rose higher up onto the moor, the wild wind whipping across the vast, open space began to lose its charm. The long path wound visibly ahead of us, and the relentless gusts began to turn our cheeks overly rosy, and even at times felt as if it were literally taking our breath away, leaving us a little short of breath. Rarely did we even think to pause to enjoy the views of Swaledale below, and we were both looking forward to the moment when we began to turn the long corner and slowly get our faces away from the wind.
The battering went on and on, and yet when we did finally arrive at the long-awaited moment of turning, we became slightly nervous. Since we had left the youth hostel, we had at least had the benefit of following a very clear stony track, giving us one less thing to worry about. Suddenly, our route demanded that we leave its security, and instead use a small path through the heather, cutting straight across the moorland. Suddenly, we were battling both the weather and the terrain. Fortunately, we did not come across anything as waterlogged as we had on the top of Great Shunner Fell, which was a blessing, but ensuring that we kept to the route was still tricky in places. The wide swinging turn took a long time to complete, and it wasn’t all bad. Along the way, we came across a small waterfall in a shallow dip, which provided a brief, picturesque rest bite, as well as several round, emergency stone wind shelters. However, this was not only the most challenging part of the day, but perhaps of the whole walk. Beth certainly had begun to feel the struggle, and I was keen to get us off this path, and back onto the return track. We kept up a good pace, and we gradually turned ourselves out of the wind and back toward stable ground. Suddenly, I felt the ground go noticeably springy underfoot. Now, I am certainly not a well-experienced fell walker. I’ve done some, but not loads, and the moorland remains overall unfamiliar territory. I was, therefore, unsure as to what I was feeling. A vision of unstable ground and sudden, gaping holes appearing beneath suddenly filled my imagination. I carried on forward calmly, hoping Beth had not noticed the unusual change. Thankfully, if she did, she said nothing too. Either way, we were both very pleased to find ourselves back on a solid track.
This then marked the turn back across the moor, and the beginning of the downward stretch. We had navigated the trickiest part of the day and, mercifully, we now had our backs to the wind. But things weren’t done yet. I had already noticed that, coming up Swaledale, there was a cloud that looked particularly rainy. I was relieved enough that we had made it to this point before it reached us, but I now turned my attention to prepping ourselves for its imminent and inevitable arrival. We paused behind the small shelter provided by a little mound, and changed into our wet-weather gear. We were already wearing coats, but we added our bag covers and waterproof trousers for good measure. And suddenly, from head-to-toe, we were proper, kit-covered walkers. When we had started walking together, we didn’t even always wear boots. And yet, year by year, little by little, we had slowly embraced the culture, until finally, looking at ourselves, we realised our journey was complete; we were fully fledged walkers.
The rain arrived quickly after. Thankfully, it was far from a downpour; however, it was enough that, combined with the still-blowing winds, we were pleased to have changed. Beth’s mood also quickly picked up as we walked side by side back across the moor – the rain came and went, and came and went again, with plenty of spells of blue sky and sunshine in between. In comparison to earlier, this section of the day was really enjoyable! We even managed to spot the first sheep of the day – a sure sign of our imminent emergence into the awaiting dale.
And so it was, after a final little climb up over the lip of the moor (we passed a dead rabbit – I had to tell Beth not to poke it with her pole) we crossed through a gate in a dry stone wall. And there it was, before us; Wensleydale. Glorious, green, glowing, beautiful Wensleydale. The place where we had begun days before. The place we had said goodbye to on day two, not knowing what was awaiting us up on the mountain. The place where we would be completing our adventure. And it was drizzling. The path suddenly began to descend rather rapidly through comfortably familiar farmland. As the rain blew through, we passed sheep of different shapes and sizes, every step taking us closer to the floor of the dale. Ahead, we noticed a familiar shape: cows. A fairly large and widespread herd were settled down toward the bottom of the vast field, and close to the path too. Beth however seemed mostly unphased; oh, how far she had come over the last few days! We drew level with them and walked within a few feet of one having a little lay down in the grass, as well as passing a clump of them who all had adorably round, fuzzy black ears.
Appearing over the tops of the trees ahead of us, we could see the peaking towers of Bolton Castle. We came down around the corner to see it in full view; an excellent castle, and well worth a visit. On this occasion, we would be popping in to its tea room for a drink, and to eat our rolls from Reeth whilst we were there. However, on the way in, we saw a sign saying that we could not eat our own food there (fair enough, expected). We then said that we would just get a coffee. As we queued up in front of the savoury snacks and delicious cakes, the inevitable happened. Minutes later, we sat down in the castle, with a slice of pork pie, a cheese scone, a big slice of Victoria sponge, a Bakewell blondie, a pot of tea and an iced latte; rolls remained in the bag, quite forgotten. This being the last lunch of the walk, we felt it justified and marked 4/4 excellent lunch stops.
We stepped back out into the castle into the blustery day. Foolishly, I had taken my waterproof trousers off before going in and even attempted to set off with bare legs. However, long before the castle was even slightly out of sight, we had to pull over at the side of the road so I could quickly whip them back on. Then, we were finally able to set off onto the final miles of The Herriot Way. For obvious reasons, I have always found these miles to be rather sad. Not that it wasn’t fun or memorable; we passed a shocking amount of dead things, including one poor pheasant which looked quite peaceful until it met the wheels of a tractor, as well as a flock of sheep, among whom we somehow caused a bit of a panic, and they collectively decided it was best to run away from us.
And yet, we were now coming to the end of our Yorkshire adventure. We had had a lovely time. We love our weekend walks; they are a part of the week that we have just to ourselves, where the rest of the world falls away. A long-distance walk, even a relatively short one like this, provides that same feeling for days on end. Sure, there were challenges along the way, but that’s part of the joy. We overcame them together, and enjoyed a relaxing, rewarding adventure. And the very best bit of all had been how much Beth had enjoyed it. When we had started on Monday, Beth was so incredibly nervous about multiple things. Yet, by the time we had reached the Bridge Inn at the end of day three, Beth had started researching both the Coast to Coast and the Pennine Way (let’s see where that goes), both of which are considerably longer, and can only mean one thing: she had had a good time. And now here we were, at the end of the final day, and Beth was visibly sad to hear that there was no longer a risk of cow encounters.
A rushing, roaring sound rose to meet us from somewhere below. We followed it downhill. A river – a familiar river – appeared through the trees beside us. We followed the Ure for a moment, before the path brought us through to a clearing. Tumbling away below us was a heavy waterfall. We looked down onto the lower falls; we had returned to rushing Aysgarth Falls. We stopped for a moment to soak it in and celebrate our triumph, and continued up to the middle falls, where we stopped again. And from there, we made our way back up through the little woodland, where we arrived at a road. Up the road was a car park. In the corner of that car park was a car; our car. We walked over. The final steps of our adventure. At a quarter to three, we stopped and tapped the car; and then it was over.
Beth suggested that we just keep walking, that we should go for another lap. That’s funny, because years ago, I had said the exact same thing.
loved the video. It brought back lots of happy memories.
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