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| Our Monday evening view – just as well photos don’t convey smells 😉 |
17 of us descended on
Gordale Scar this year. Sophie and Yanos
were the advance party and set up camp a week ago last Monday. Steve managed to get away from work early and
arrived on Thursday followed by my brother Richard and his son Ted and also Judith,
my sister, and Nigel. The rest of us
arrived at various times during Friday, including Karen's sister Heather and her family.
We always set up camp so
we can see the entrance to the scar and can hear the beck gently babbling all
night.
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| Breakfast before the younger adults woke up |
When Karen and I camped
here a couple of weeks ago, the becks and waterfalls were dry but with the
recent rain they are starting to revive.
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| Janet’s Foss at the bottom of the site – great place to have a wash or a swim or just spectate |
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| Me pretending my son is as tall as me as we look down on Janet’s Foss |
On Saturday we all walked
over the tops and across to Malham Cove ending up at the Lister Arms, our pub
of choice in Malham. We set off separately
as some of the boys wanted to climb up the waterfall at the end of the scar and
meet up with the rest at the top. We had
two dogs with us and neither would be able to climb up the waterfall.
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| The first waterfall – still not a lot of water |
Steve and I climbed up the
left-hand side and the others went up the right. When Karen and I were here recently we found
it really eerie as there was no water running and the place was deathly
quiet. At least it was getting back to
normal and the cliffs provided plenty of amplification to the water splashing
down.
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| More falls further up |
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We all met up on the
limestone pavement at the top and then went down to the bottom of the cove. Some of the party carried on to have lunch in
the pub and the rest of us had a picnic at the bottom before joining the rest
at the pub for drinks.
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| Replete after our picnic with the cove behind |
The days were fairly warm,
and the rain mostly held off. There was
a mist on a couple of mornings that soon lifted.
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| Sophie’s picture of the early morning mist |
Most evenings the boys got
together to play French cricket as is the custom. This is always a rowdy affair as most of them
are would-be coaches 😊 We
spectators always find it funny when a cry of, ‘catch!’ goes up but never the
name of who should be catching the ball.
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Thinking of funny things,
I caught Yanos out one evening. It was late,
so it was dark and we were looking out for shooting stars and also pointing out
the odd plane and satellite. When one
plane came over I announced it was an Easyjet plane and Yanos asked how I
knew. I explained to him that the
company was set up before the latest lighting regulations and their planes only
have red lights; the company saves money by not having to buy green ones. Once he fell in, Yanos took it well as he
always does 😊
Most evenings saw some of the
group walking up the sides of the scar from where there are good views of the
campsite.
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| Looking down on the scar with the bottom waterfall in sight |
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| The campsite – we’re the closest gaggle of tents |
Everybody left during the
morning on Monday leaving us on our own – we thought we may stay on another
night or two. Once everyone had gone we
went for a walk taking in a quick drink at the pub of course. Although the heatwave disappeared from the north a couple of weeks ago it's still warm enough for butterflies and during our walk we saw our first small copper and painted lady of the year.
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| Cows and sheep running to the green sheepdog during our walk |
When at the pub we had started
making lists of the things we want to do in the remaining fortnight before we
set off on our long summer holiday. Apart
from the practical things that need doing like moving the boat and washing we
also have a few leisure activities to complete such as climbing another
mountain, going to the sheepdog trials and visiting a farm show.
When we got back to the campsite the weather had deteriorated,
and the drizzle had started; this coupled with the fact we had far more to do
than we had realised made us pack up tent and go home. Of course, when we got back to the boat it was
warm and sunny – often the weather at Malham is completely different to lower
down the in the Dales.
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| Some of our many lists |
We were also greeted with
the lovely smell of slurry; the fields next to our mooring had been sprayed
while we were away. As I lived on farms
when I was younger, the smell doesn’t bother me but I have to admit it was
pretty pungent this time as it was so fresh.
We soon got used to it (we
had to as we needed all the doors and windows open with the warm weather) and
carried out a proper planning session. We
wanted to go camping once more before setting off on holiday, so I looked for a
campsite around Hawes where we were going to see the sheepdog trials. As expected, most were full or didn’t take
dogs so I started to search further afield.
For some reason I looked up the details of the trials and found they had
been canclelled due to the drought. Fortunately, there were more trials a few
days later near Ingleton and I found a campsite that would take us. We will combine that trip with a walk up Pen
y Ghent and searching for VR boxes in that area thus killing four birds with
one stone or at least ticking four things off our do list 😊
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| Nice and misty on Tuesday morning |
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