Amazing Day
An easy ramble, mainly on lanes from long ago, with lovely long reaching views of the Skipton Fells and the Dales.
Approximately 6.5 miles
Allow 3 hours
Park on the free car park in Hellifield. BD23 4HT
Yesterday, I had work to do and I dutifully went into my office at 9am and started to pull everything together I needed to write a long report. After a while I looked at the blue sky outside and suddenly thought, “What the hell am I doing? It’s Sunday! This is exactly how I got ill nearly 3 years ago, why am I slipping back into these bad habits? For slipping I have been and as a result the anxious feeling is creeping in alongside the headaches and the waking at night. How can I hold myself up as an example to stressed individuals if I’m not practicing what I preach? So I closed my laptop and packed up my rucksack.
It was already 10.30am, so I needed to walk somewhere fairly local and only for 3 – 4 hours. Pouring over my OS Explorer map, I spotted a short walk I’d done in October 2017 which I’d thoroughly enjoyed and I saw that I could add a couple of miles by starting off in Hellifield, only 5 miles from Gisburn.
There’s a handy free car park behind the Black Horse pub in Hellifield and across the road is a cozy café (Hazy Dayz) with sofas and a log burner. Realising that I was starving as I’d only had a coffee at home, I had half an hour with the paper and an extremely good full English! Then it was boots on, poles in hand and off up Haw Drive opposite the church.
I passed the terraced houses with Christmas trees all aglow and was soon on Haw Lane, which starts just past the railway line. You have to cross the track so stop and have a good listen for trains. Within minutes, I was in the midst of fields and there were the views I love of old barns and woods, sheep dotted fields and dry stone walls; I could feel the tension in my shoulders starting to ease as I breathed in the cold fresh air. There were deep puddles on the track and in them, the magical upside-down world of reflection. In the large puddle ahead, I could see the trees I had just walked passed, it felt like future, past and present were merged into one glorious moment and reminded me that I’d been missing the moments lately as I raced through the busy lead up to Christmas.
So I stood; noticing the red berries on the tangled tree to my left, the caw-cawing of the rooks circling the field ahead, the distant sound of gun shots on the Skipton Moors and I breathed the November smells of funghi and wet leaves.
An old lady approached on the track, hunched over and walking slowly with a stick; but there she was with her walking boots on about half a mile out of the village. She smiled and talked about the weather, as walkers do and I prayed that I will still be walking at her age.
At the end of the track, a gate leads into a field that slopes up to the right, and I kept to the left of the slope heading for the woods straight across. Big broad faced sheep looked at me for a few seconds before they resumed their nibbling.
Crossing a small beck, I headed for a gate which leads onto Dacre Lane. I turned right and followed the track between nature’s Christmas trees on the left and gnarled hawthorns, ash and elm on my right. Their bare branches waited patiently behind a green mossed wall, for next summer’s show of dancing leaves and choruses of bird song. Along the lane came a farmer on a quad bike, with 2 sheep dogs bounding happily behind, he tipped his cap at me as I stood ‘neath the pines, breathing in the lovely sappy scent.
I was soon dropping down into the picture postcard tiny village of Otterburn with its scattering of houses and farms running alongside Otterburn beck. Left and over the stone bridge and then immediately left following the beck-side. You have to go through some big metal gates here and you feel like you are going into someone’s private gardens, but you are in fact walking through a farmyard and it is a footpath. Straight past the farm buildings and on to a track (don’t go left through a little gate onto the beck side), which I followed for a few hundred yards before coming to a gate on my right where a footpath sign points left to Kirkby Malham. I looked back at the water crashing around boulders, way higher than last time I’d done this walk and noticed two ponies stood on the crest of the hill opposite, a black and a cream one standing perfectly still. I stood in the sunshine for 2 or 3 minutes and they never moved, a lesson in stillness.
An easy ramble, mainly on lanes from long ago, with lovely long reaching views of the Skipton Fells and the Dales.
Approximately 6.5 miles
Allow 3 hours
Park on the free car park in Hellifield. BD23 4HT
Yesterday, I had work to do and I dutifully went into my office at 9am and started to pull everything together I needed to write a long report. After a while I looked at the blue sky outside and suddenly thought, “What the hell am I doing? It’s Sunday! This is exactly how I got ill nearly 3 years ago, why am I slipping back into these bad habits? For slipping I have been and as a result the anxious feeling is creeping in alongside the headaches and the waking at night. How can I hold myself up as an example to stressed individuals if I’m not practicing what I preach? So I closed my laptop and packed up my rucksack.
It was already 10.30am, so I needed to walk somewhere fairly local and only for 3 – 4 hours. Pouring over my OS Explorer map, I spotted a short walk I’d done in October 2017 which I’d thoroughly enjoyed and I saw that I could add a couple of miles by starting off in Hellifield, only 5 miles from Gisburn.
There’s a handy free car park behind the Black Horse pub in Hellifield and across the road is a cozy café (Hazy Dayz) with sofas and a log burner. Realising that I was starving as I’d only had a coffee at home, I had half an hour with the paper and an extremely good full English! Then it was boots on, poles in hand and off up Haw Drive opposite the church.
I passed the terraced houses with Christmas trees all aglow and was soon on Haw Lane, which starts just past the railway line. You have to cross the track so stop and have a good listen for trains. Within minutes, I was in the midst of fields and there were the views I love of old barns and woods, sheep dotted fields and dry stone walls; I could feel the tension in my shoulders starting to ease as I breathed in the cold fresh air. There were deep puddles on the track and in them, the magical upside-down world of reflection. In the large puddle ahead, I could see the trees I had just walked passed, it felt like future, past and present were merged into one glorious moment and reminded me that I’d been missing the moments lately as I raced through the busy lead up to Christmas.
So I stood; noticing the red berries on the tangled tree to my left, the caw-cawing of the rooks circling the field ahead, the distant sound of gun shots on the Skipton Moors and I breathed the November smells of funghi and wet leaves.
An old lady approached on the track, hunched over and walking slowly with a stick; but there she was with her walking boots on about half a mile out of the village. She smiled and talked about the weather, as walkers do and I prayed that I will still be walking at her age.
At the end of the track, a gate leads into a field that slopes up to the right, and I kept to the left of the slope heading for the woods straight across. Big broad faced sheep looked at me for a few seconds before they resumed their nibbling.
Crossing a small beck, I headed for a gate which leads onto Dacre Lane. I turned right and followed the track between nature’s Christmas trees on the left and gnarled hawthorns, ash and elm on my right. Their bare branches waited patiently behind a green mossed wall, for next summer’s show of dancing leaves and choruses of bird song. Along the lane came a farmer on a quad bike, with 2 sheep dogs bounding happily behind, he tipped his cap at me as I stood ‘neath the pines, breathing in the lovely sappy scent.
I was soon dropping down into the picture postcard tiny village of Otterburn with its scattering of houses and farms running alongside Otterburn beck. Left and over the stone bridge and then immediately left following the beck-side. You have to go through some big metal gates here and you feel like you are going into someone’s private gardens, but you are in fact walking through a farmyard and it is a footpath. Straight past the farm buildings and on to a track (don’t go left through a little gate onto the beck side), which I followed for a few hundred yards before coming to a gate on my right where a footpath sign points left to Kirkby Malham. I looked back at the water crashing around boulders, way higher than last time I’d done this walk and noticed two ponies stood on the crest of the hill opposite, a black and a cream one standing perfectly still. I stood in the sunshine for 2 or 3 minutes and they never moved, a lesson in stillness.
Turning from my shadow and the fast flowing brook, I headed through the gate and made for a copse of trees slightly uphill to my left. Skirting the trees I headed for the gate ahead and I sloshed my way through the mud and strode straight across the next field. Not much sign of a path here but there’s a stile straight ahead with a little wooden gate on top of it. Once over this, I kept to the wall, (don’t go through an open gateway on the right). At the end of the wall, just keep walking straight across the field. Now you’re out on your own proper, just hills and woods and old barns and your shadow to keep you company (plus the sheep of course!) I looked behind and there was majestic Pendle far away under a hazy sun, whilst ahead were the most southerly of the Yorkshire Dales hills. This is a big field, but just keep going straight and you will drop down to a country lane, head for the gate onto the lane and there’s a stile ten yards or so to the right of it. This is Scosthrop Lane, go left for a hundred yards or so and then left onto Green Lane where a signpost says Long Preston 3.5 miles.
I had to really march on now, I’d spent so much time taking pictures and making notes that it was already 1.45 and I was only half way round the walk. Not wanting to get caught in the dusk on Crake Moor, I seriously picked up speed. As the track dips there’s a couple of deserted cottages at Orms Gill and here I followed a path left down the side between the old deserted cottage and more modern farm buildings.
This next part really doesn’t have a clear path at all, I just headed down through the gate past a field barn and through another gate down the field and slightly to the left of a new plantation of trees, across the ford – which was like a river after all the rain so I just had to run through it! Straight up and over the field, keeping Houber woods on your left. Then you eventually come to a wall with no gateways or stiles but don’t worry! Keeping the wall in front of you walk upwards and to the right (I think there was another gate here) and at the top of the field is a gateway and some kind of remains of an old farm building, go left through this gate and a track appears in the field in front of you. I had, in fact, after consulting my map again, asked the Universe to send me a sign here; I knew I had to get beyond the woods to find the lane but where on earth was the path? Sure enough, once through the gate, a track just appeared from nowhere! Follow the track down (woods still on left of you) and at the bottom of the field hey presto, you are back on Dacre lane! So now you just have to retrace your steps by crossing straight over the lane and through the gate into the field, over the little beck, right-ish and along under the sloping side of the field back to Haw Lane. I breathed a big sigh of relief I can tell you when I found I was back on Dacre Lane. My map reading skills are good, but you don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere on a December afternoon after 3 o clock. Always aim to be down from the fells by 2.30 on a winter afternoon.
Now I was back on the home straight, I looked for a through-stone in a wall as it was too wet to sit on the grass and I had a perch for 5 minutes and a well deserved cup of coffee and a biscuit. I recalled that last time I did this walk I struggled with the path too, but that time I’d stayed on Green Lane until I got to Crake Moor Farm and the farmer who just so happened to be passing in his land-rover, told me to go through his farm yard, go through the gate by the silage bails on the left, then just follow the wall all the way down to the beck and head for the part of the moor ahead where it was brown on one side and green on the other! He was right and this brought me onto an earlier section of Dacre Lane. I often find that when I am trying to find a missing footpath, some-one will appear, a lone walker or a farmer to reassure me that I am on the right route. And, if all else fails, you can always turn around and retrace your steps!
I was soon back into Hellifield and in the car for 3.40. It had been a walk of muddy tracks and puddles, fields and moorland and woods, hazy sun and blue-grey skies and I’d not given work or anything else much a thought. Looking for the next gate or stile, checking your map, soaking up the views and breathing in all that cold fresh air, is a wonderful way to ease those shoulders and dissolve that knot at the top of your stomach. Which is why when I add today’s walk to my calendar, I will have walked 800 miles so far this year. I am trying to get to 1000 miles in one year and I promise I will in 2019!
Back in the car, I turned the stereo on to find Coldplay playing ‘Amazing Day’ and thought how fitting that Chris was singing about how I felt at that exact moment.
‘And I asked every book
Poetry and chime
Can there be breaks
In the chaos of times?
Oh, thanks God
You must've heard when I prayed
Because now I always
Want to feel this way
Amazing day
Amazing day.’
(copyright Coldplay)
I had to really march on now, I’d spent so much time taking pictures and making notes that it was already 1.45 and I was only half way round the walk. Not wanting to get caught in the dusk on Crake Moor, I seriously picked up speed. As the track dips there’s a couple of deserted cottages at Orms Gill and here I followed a path left down the side between the old deserted cottage and more modern farm buildings.
This next part really doesn’t have a clear path at all, I just headed down through the gate past a field barn and through another gate down the field and slightly to the left of a new plantation of trees, across the ford – which was like a river after all the rain so I just had to run through it! Straight up and over the field, keeping Houber woods on your left. Then you eventually come to a wall with no gateways or stiles but don’t worry! Keeping the wall in front of you walk upwards and to the right (I think there was another gate here) and at the top of the field is a gateway and some kind of remains of an old farm building, go left through this gate and a track appears in the field in front of you. I had, in fact, after consulting my map again, asked the Universe to send me a sign here; I knew I had to get beyond the woods to find the lane but where on earth was the path? Sure enough, once through the gate, a track just appeared from nowhere! Follow the track down (woods still on left of you) and at the bottom of the field hey presto, you are back on Dacre lane! So now you just have to retrace your steps by crossing straight over the lane and through the gate into the field, over the little beck, right-ish and along under the sloping side of the field back to Haw Lane. I breathed a big sigh of relief I can tell you when I found I was back on Dacre Lane. My map reading skills are good, but you don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere on a December afternoon after 3 o clock. Always aim to be down from the fells by 2.30 on a winter afternoon.
Now I was back on the home straight, I looked for a through-stone in a wall as it was too wet to sit on the grass and I had a perch for 5 minutes and a well deserved cup of coffee and a biscuit. I recalled that last time I did this walk I struggled with the path too, but that time I’d stayed on Green Lane until I got to Crake Moor Farm and the farmer who just so happened to be passing in his land-rover, told me to go through his farm yard, go through the gate by the silage bails on the left, then just follow the wall all the way down to the beck and head for the part of the moor ahead where it was brown on one side and green on the other! He was right and this brought me onto an earlier section of Dacre Lane. I often find that when I am trying to find a missing footpath, some-one will appear, a lone walker or a farmer to reassure me that I am on the right route. And, if all else fails, you can always turn around and retrace your steps!
I was soon back into Hellifield and in the car for 3.40. It had been a walk of muddy tracks and puddles, fields and moorland and woods, hazy sun and blue-grey skies and I’d not given work or anything else much a thought. Looking for the next gate or stile, checking your map, soaking up the views and breathing in all that cold fresh air, is a wonderful way to ease those shoulders and dissolve that knot at the top of your stomach. Which is why when I add today’s walk to my calendar, I will have walked 800 miles so far this year. I am trying to get to 1000 miles in one year and I promise I will in 2019!
Back in the car, I turned the stereo on to find Coldplay playing ‘Amazing Day’ and thought how fitting that Chris was singing about how I felt at that exact moment.
‘And I asked every book
Poetry and chime
Can there be breaks
In the chaos of times?
Oh, thanks God
You must've heard when I prayed
Because now I always
Want to feel this way
Amazing day
Amazing day.’
(copyright Coldplay)
