One Night in Yorkshire

Hello Lovelies,

The weekend after my visit to Clumber  Park Hubby and I travelled up to Yorkshire to collect my mum. We made it into a mini break by going there on Saturday morning and picking up mum on Sunday afternoon. Yay, a little over 24 hours to explore some new places.

We drove up the A1 and made our first stop in Knaresborough. 

This pretty market town has some old buildings....the sweet shop in the foreground here was claiming to be the oldest in England....and it housed a tea shop.

We didn't stop though. Instead we headed for the really old Castle

A lot of it is ruined but the walks along the walls are lovely.

With dizzying views down to the river Nidd below.

What a lovely garden  you can spy on :0)

Our main reason to visit was to take in this view. It's one I have seen in pictures many times. The Victorian engineering of this railway viaduct is just wonderful I think. It was certainly still a busy line too.

 I was happy to have easily located the vantage point...though I rather wished the sun was shining for my photos :0)

From the castle we walked down through the beautiful  Bebra Gardens

To the river.

And refreshments. As well as a hot drink we enjoyed a hot meal alfresco. A treat in October.

While we watched the birds on the water and the trains high above.

Looking back at the cafe where we ate.

After a couple of hours in Knaresborough we moved on to our first National trust visit of the day. Brimham Rocks. Where the sun came out. Yay.

This fascinating place is a mixture of woodland

and weirdly shaped rocks. Created by glacial action apparently.

It has great views.

and clambering opportunities ...hello.... there's an easy way up around the back :0)

All that exploring had made room for a mid afternoon snack from my rucksack, with a stunning view.

Our exploring next took us to another National trust property. I've wanted to visit Studley Royal water gardens for quiet a few years, sadly the weather had changed again and by this point there was rather more water than was desirable....i.e. it was tipping it down.

Hubby and I wandered around in our cagoules waiting for the light to fade. 

We nearly gave up but happily dusk arrived in the nick of time.

Next to the water gardens is the ruined Fountains Abbey.

And in October the National Trust open it on a Saturday evening for their Fountains by Floodlight event.

I must say I didn't find it very floodlit really, but it certainly was atmospheric.

With THIS sort of music playing and hooded figures slowly walking through the ruins.

spine tingling. 

We left Fountains in the dark and followed a rather dubious sat-nav route along unlit, winding and pretty scary tracks. I'm so glad hubby was driving. I do think they are a great invention, sat-navs....but sometimes their choice of roads has me baffled. Thankfully we eventually arrived safely at our accommodation for the night in Ilkley. 

I think the food tasted extra delicious thanks to all our time outdoors and the relief of surviving that drive!

 Ooooh, what a lovely cosy room in the roof. We both slept very well.

After breakfast we headed out for a walk on Ilkley moor.

There were lots of lovely Red Grouse hiding in the heather, and their comical call made us smile.

Great views from up here.

And don't forget to look down.

Sphagnum moss.

In fact you better watch where you are walking :0)

We did get a little bit lost up there and I could sense hubby wasn't really enjoying this bog dodging.

So it was a relief to find a clear path down.

Looking down on Ilkley.

Zooming in on the Autumn colours.

More interesting rocks to explore.

Here are the Cow and Calf rocks which Ilkey moor is famous for. It's a great name even though I can't really see a cow or a calf here myself.

The rain clouds were gathering as we finished our walk and we were lucky to reach the car before the rain started.
By this time it was still only about 11am. Too early to fetch mum. What should we do? Go into Ilkley and look around the shops?

"We could go to Bolton Abbey, but it's more walking" I offered.  Happily hubby was game for that so we did the easy and scenic daylight drive into the dales.

We won't talk about the car park charge...except to say it's not cheap! But hey, we were on a mini adventure and the rain had stopped :0)

Lets head through the hole in the wall into another world.

Well, not quiet, but a very pretty place anyway.

It's a good job they have a bridge because the stepping stones were under water.

We climbed up a steep path in search of a particular view down onto the Abbey. Ohhh maybe not here.

Yikes, how is that tree even staying put?

The countryside up here was idyllic.

and the sun came out too.... yay, the Abbey from above.

And the remains of a rainbow.

I loved the elevated paths.

Hello again :0)

The walking was easy and very pretty.

And all along it there were interesting structures for the little ones to enjoy. How great is this? :0)

My boys would have loved this when they were smaller.

Now we had descended to river level and we were strolling beside the Wharfe.

I really loved this view of autumn colours and the historic Cavendish Pavilion.

Come on, lets cross the water and get a hot drink.

Got to admire the view first.

It turned out that the queues were horrendous at the cafe. Plan B. More homemade cake from my rucksack 👍👨👩.
Ooops, I slipped into emoji mode there 😁



It seems that whole world was visiting Bolton Abbey on this sunny Sunday morning (despite the high parking cost)

We tried walking by the waters edge, it still felt like walking through a car park.

I attempted, and failed, to get a view without cars here. To be fair they were parked on grass so I expect it's very different on a quiet weekday or early morning.

Eventually we left the car park and climbed up to gain lovely views of the river and the abbey.

The "Beach"

And the sun kept shining as we reached the abbey once more.

I've just noticed there's another hint of a rainbow in this final image, taken as we said goodbye to this lovely landscape.

I think we fitted a lot into our relatively short visit and we were generally pretty lucky with the weather.

Sorry it's taken me a while to get around to publishing this post. I'm also playing catch up with my Temperature blanket, having fallen horribly behind over the summer. I'm currently working on mid September's squares and need to do about 3 squares a day to catch up by December. It doesn't sound too bad but I still seem to struggle to fit any in some days....then it's six squares the next day....

 Never-mind. I'm determined to do it and I know I work best when there is a deadline :0)

Jacquie x