Wednesday 31 August 2016

Yorkshire Holiday 2016: Afternoon Sun

At the end of my previous post, I said that it had not been my last walk for the day. In fact, after we returned home and had a rest (and something to eat), I decided to go out again - the day was so nice, and I simply wanted to walk some more. This time, I went on my own, allowing my sister some peace and quiet with her book on the settee :-)

It wasn't anywhere "new" or "exciting", just a walk we'd been on before. If you want to compare, click here for pictures of the same walk two years ago and look for changes.







Up until now, I had met maybe three or four other people on the path; two with dogs, and a few others on their own. After that, I did not meet a soul until I was back across the river in Ripon.









The village of Sharow:





After this point, I was back in town, and walked maybe another 15 minutes until I was home again. The early evening light had made this walk extra nice, but now I had done enough walking for one day and was looking forward to joining my sister in our cosy living room.

Tuesday 30 August 2016

Yorkshire Holiday 2016: How Hill

Maybe you remember How Hill from my "live blogging" on the 4th of August, when my sister and I went on another nice long walk and came across this beautiful place. If you don't, or if you want to refresh your memory of what I said there about the history of How Hill, simply click here.

The pictures I am going to show you now should give you a good impression of our overall walk. It may appear much longer than it actually was - it really took less than two hours to get to How Hill, and we were not running, just enjoying the walk at a leisurely pace.

Once we had left the last row of Ripon houses behind and were out on the lanes between fields and meadows, we had some surprise views of Ripon Cathedral:


The same view as above, just zoomed in.
 You can tell it had been raining the day before:

Another surprise view for us - this is St. Mary's, on the Studley Royal / Fountains Abbey estate:





 Getting closer to How Hill:



At the bottom of the hill are holiday cottages managed by the National Trust. They are surrounded by pastures with sheep everywhere. One of them had somehow managed to get in the enclosure meant for the holiday cottage (and NOT to keep sheep). When we came up close to take photos, it tried very hard to get out again but did not immediately find the way - even looking to get inside the house in its hurry to get away from us, it seems!





Again, St. Mary's visible in the distance (the same view as above, just zoomed in) and the bell tower of Fountains Abbey:



How Hill Chapel and the views from the top:



 I would have so liked to get in, but it was completely boarded up and not accessible:





After our break with cheese scones (as seen in the post I have linked to above), we walked further on, entering Fountains Abbey estate from the back. Along the way, Fountains Hall was visible from an angle as we had not seen it before:



 Nearly there, just round the bend!



Another beautiful walk was coming to an end, but it wasn't the last walk for me that day, as you will see in one of my next posts.