The Yorkshire Dales and Area

We’ve spent 3 days or so wandering around “The Dales”. The wandering started in the south in what’s called Wharfedale. From our campground, we were able to hike along the Wharfe River towards what we hoped was Bolton Abbet. Unfortunately, in the time we had available, we only made it as far as Barden Tower and we didn’t see the actual abbey ruins until the next day as we left for the more northern Dales. Bolton Abbey is apparently the oldest abbey ruins in Yorkshire. I don’t know how to distinguish – everything here seems to go back to the 1100s or 1200s….

We had a short “walk” to a small “tarn”, supposedly the highest lake in the area. It was certainly up in the moors. The Pennine Way went by this – more open hill ‘n dale walking.

Eventually, we ended up in the Swale River Valley (Swaledale) in a nice little campground on the edge of Reeth. Our first afternoon we spent walking a loop down the river to another village and back to Reeth. Thinking we needed a day without driving, we elected to stay for a second night and spent a good part of the day walking up the Arkengarthdale to Langthwaite where we indulged ourselves in the traditional walker’s reward, a brew from the local pub, before we walked back to Reeth.

Reeth itself was pretty busy today, Good Friday. People are all over the “village green”, there was a village market going on earlier in the day….this is what replaces the lead mining industry of years ago. Sheep rearing seems to be still in vogue.

Saturday dawned sunny but damp from the night’s dew. We headed east and a bit south to visit the Fountains Abbey located at Studley Royal. I have to admit being a bit curious about the origin of “that” name. Fountains Abbey was very nice – an old set of stately ruins set in a valley, next to a small stream. Just what you’d expect of some old abbey ruins. About half an hour east, we also visited the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey also set in a small valley sheltered by the surrounding hills. This was started in the 1100s and was operated as a Cistercian Abbey for 400 years until Henry VIII abolished such places in 1538 and dismantled the places so that they would not be used again. At its height, there were 800 men living there.