A Grand Day Out

Rain, rain, go away!

It pretty much fell constantly throughout the day, but it didn’t stop us from ticking off what we wanted to see. Apart from spectacular vistas of the Yorkshire Dales, that is!

Looking at the map, we did a 360° trip out from Settle today. Incredibly, the furthest we went was 30 miles north, but it took us 8 hours all up!

I’d forgotten about the weird and wonderful village names England is famous for, and was excited to come across these three beauties!

Our first stop was Malham Cove. We’d visited here in 2005, but needed an excuse to stretch our legs, so embarked on the one mile walk-up the rain sodden pathway. The walkway certainly showed the stream (river?) flowing at full force.

But we discovered that the great thing about visiting iconic vistas in the rain is that you’re the only ones there!

The laneways were challenging again, but traffic was pretty light, so we coped! It helped to have little distractions along the way, like 9th century St. Michael’s at Kirkby Malham.

We were then on the Wensleydale hunt for Wallace and Grommit, certainly one of ours, especially Katie’s, favourite animated icons.

And Wensleydale as a ‘Dale’ is centred on the village of Hawes. Hawes has definitely taken Wallace and Grommit to their hearts.

There was this.

And this…

A visit to the Wensleydale Cheese Creamery was essential, where you could line up and make your way around the tasting table where about a dozen different Wensleydale cheeses- matured, extra matured, smoked, cranberry, apricot infused (you get the drift) were there to be sampled. Fountains Gold Cheddar and Ginger infused were my picks, purchased ready for the canal welcome aboard party tomorrow!

The rain continued to fall, but being the TV tragic I am, we just had to make a side trip to Askrigg, the village that was used for the original BBC production of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. I loved that show!

Gorgeous church, three pubs, and the Herriot House. Perfect!