Wednesday we are up and ready to explore more of the Yorkshire Dales countryside. We enjoyed a toast and coffee breakfast and then drove to Reeth in search of some bread from one of the two bakeries in the village. It was a glorious day for a drive; the skies and clouds were stunning, the temperature was in the upper 60’s to low 70’s, and, due to midweek, the traffic was much lighter. We returned and unloaded our supplies and groceries, rested and read for a while and then back into the car to drive towards our evening meal reservation. One of the villages we pass through on our runs up and down the B6270 road bordering the River Swale is called Low Row. According to Wikipedia, the name Low Row come from the old Norse word “The Wra” meaning a nook or small place. Overlooking the road is a pub, The Punch Bowl, the building dating to 1638. We had reserved a table for 6:30.
Compared to our local Kingshead Pub, The Punch Bowl is upscale, with multiple dining rooms and servers. Deb ordered a starter of scallops, which turned out to be an English version of Coqueilles St. Jacque, smothered in cheese and garlic sauce, on a large shell and broiled. It was very tasty. We then both chose the Steak & Ale pie as our main course, accompanied by mashed potatoes and hot vegetables. The vegetables were a combination of roasted carrots and parsnips, with warm broccoli, green beans and kale accompaniment. All washed down with red wine and a Black Sheep ale. We topped it off with a shared dessert of Eton Mess. One of our better pub meals.
Thursday was another stay-at-the-cottage day! We read, enjoyed a full English breakfast, Deb worked on some client files, and we generally just relaxed. After all, we are on vacation, right?
Friday we took off mid morning for the Market Town of Hawes in the Wensleydale area, the next valley over. Hawes was probably first settled in the 1100’s. First mention of a market in this town is in 1307. The name is derived from the old Norse “hals” meaning neck or pass through the mountains. Market Towns stem from the Middle Ages and are designated as such by custom or have been granted a royal charter. Hawes was granted a charter in 1699 by William III. Market day in Hawes is on Tuesday, Reeth’s on Wednesdays and Leyburn’s on Friday.
Hawes is also the setting of the fictional DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Harry Grimm, whose exploits we have been reading during our stay. We spent most of a morning and afternoon wandering the village, checking of the spots we had read about; the Village community center which is where the police are offices, J.W. Crockett Butcher and Bakery, serving the town since 1854, and the Herriot Hotel and Cafe.
We stopped at The Crown Pub for a lunch of Stilton and Broccoli soup, and a cheese and chutney sandwich. Deb enjoyed a glass of fruity Cider and Mark a pint of Theakston’s Old Peculiar Ale. After lunch we walked the streets and shops; Deb sampled an ice cream cone and we ended up purchasing some Wellie gardening boots for Deb and a waxed cotton flat cap for Mark, the first real souvenirs of our trip. As we walked along the streets of Hawes, we ran across amazing little crocheted figures perch upon outside furniture and along benches. There were signs attached noting that they were created by local Hawes knitters and labeled yarn bombs. The same practice that Abigail and her fellow knitters do at home, usually with yarn scarves around trees and light posts!
We drove back over the famous Buttertubs pass and back to our Gunnerside cottage, having enjoyed a day of touring our small part of the world. On the way, we took a side road to the hamlet of Ivelet to photograph the famous single lane arched bridge over the River Swale. This hamlet is just off the main road up from Gunnerside. It is also the home (hidden) of Robert Miller, richest man in Yorkshire (according to published reports.) Miller, an American who founded the chain of Duty Free Shopes in airports around the world, owns the Gunnerside Estate, some 32,000 acres of moor and dale. It is one of the finest grouse hunting areas in England, and we are in the middle of grouse season, which starts on August 12 (“The Glorious Twelfth “) and runs through December 1. This may account for some of the increased traffic in our Gunnerside village.
Saturday, after a few loads of laundry, we made a list of food we had on hand and calculated what we would need to finish up our last few nights. We then drove into Leyburn for some shopping time. Unbeknownst to us, there was an Agricultural Show going on in the town and traffic was horrendous. This weekend is the August Bank Holiday weekend. Bank Holidays are on Mondays and basically mean a three day weekend. The August Bank Holiday is a big deal as it is the end of the summer school break and means lots of tourists in the area. Deb went into the Campbell’s Grocery store, our favorite, as Mark drove around the square a few times in hopes of a parking spot, one finally opened and he grabbed it. We finished with our shopping and loaded the provisions into the car and pointed ourselves back to the west.
We took the scenic route - trying some roads and byways we had not traveled before. As we have become more familiar with the roads, villages and geography, we are becoming more adventuresome and finding single track roads up and over and around the moors and dales. Our chosen route took us back over the moors towards Wensleydale as we looked for a fuel station. Google pointed us to one in Aysgarth, near the Falls, a spot we had visited a number of times before. The National Park Center there has good parking, easy and clean restrooms, and, importantly, some of the best soft serve ice cream/gelato that Deb has discovered on the trip. Since we were headed that way for fuel, we needed to stop for her fourth tasting of their cones. Who knows when we may get back again and this was top notch stuff!
Back over the moors again and onto our cottage. We sat in the front garden, enjoyed our martini and G&T while gazing at the dairy cows grazing on the moor side directly above our garden.
Deb whipped up a sausage and tomato topping for our supply of penne. We cracked a bottle of wine and enjoyed the evening, ending with some solid reading time and into bed by 10:00.
Sunday morning we arose and found the road outside our cottage busy with people walking to and fro. Looking for parking spots along the road, unloading their dogs, kids and hiking shoes and setting out for a walk along the river, across the fields and up into the moors. As the middle day of this three-day weekend, the area looks to be very busy. Last Wednesday we had stopped into the Kings Head pub to make reservations for tonight’s dinner, hoping to get a helping of the roast, mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding we had glimpsed last week. They were so pre-booked for the weekend that the earliest we could get a table was 7:45, giving some idea of the rush in the area. We prepared our breakfast and spent the morning reading the World Herald. In the afternoon we read and Deb began pre-packing our bags for the next leg of our adventure. We enjoyed a cocktail in the front garden and then headed across the road for our evening dinner, the last at Kings Head pub. We were disappointed to find that our hoped for roast and pudding was not on the menu for the evening. The pub was packed with diners.
Deb ordered the beer battered scampi and Mark the fish pie. Neither dish was what we had envisioned. The scampi with chips was more like “Shrimp McNuggets,” heavily battered and no shrimp shape at all. The chips were fine, as usual. The fish pie with mashed potatoes was not a pastry covered pie with a side of mashed, but rather a bowl of mashed potatoes, covered by unidentifiable fish (probably cod) in a white sauce, the entire bowl then covered in a cheese sauce and toasted under the broiler. It was really quite tasty, but not what I thought it would be. Both dishes were accompanied by huge bowls of freshly cooked peas. An interesting meal, to say the least.
We walked home in fading light looking back at our neighborhood pub with some fondness. We never actually sat in the pub for a pint, as it was usually filled with walking tourists, not the locals we had expected. There are perhaps 90 cottages in the village, only some 60 full time residents, and it is jam-packed with walkers and cyclists who converge here for the scenery, walking trails and backroads to wander on their bicycles. A real Mecca for the outdoors type. Justifiably so. We finished the evening in front of the television, watching an Inspector Lewis we had never seen and Mark then stayed up until midnight finishing a Harry Grimm novel on his Kindle.
Monday, as we are doing more preliminary packing, we realize that there is no way in hell we can get everything in our 5 (count ‘em, FIVE) suitcases. Even through we have not bought much in the way of knick-knacks, we have still managed to purchase much more than we thought, mostly presents for other people or gardening items. So, off we go, in search of another suitcase. (Luckily, we get to check two apiece on United for free and the additional two are our carry-ons.) We decide Leyburn may have what we want and we would like to have tea one last time at our favorite tea shop, The Posthorn Tearoom & Cafe. Off we go, traveling through Reeth, which is having it’s big fair today and it is packed. The roads are packed, the parking lots are packed, the people are streaming into Reeth from every which way, clogging up the roads by car and on foot. The one-car bridge leading out of Reeth does not accommodate both walkers and a car. Mark, who is by now a master left side driver, managed to only piss off one young walker who felt some entitlement to the bridge. Her mother apologized. Finally, a mile out side of Reeth, we are free to hit the high roads on our way to Leyburn. Where, being the last day of a 3 day holiday weekend, the place is PACKED! Note to selves: Never go to Europe in the late summer, August especially!
After our tea and toasted cheese scone, we hit all the stores in Leyburn but alas, no suitcase. So we decide to go another 8 miles (and 40 minutes) to Richmond and the Super-Tesco there. We somehow manage to take two wrong turns but arrive unscathed. And, voila!, they have a perfect, small-ish suitcase for a very reasonable price. As we are checking out, our very adorable cashier asked if we were going on Holiday and we said, no, we ARE on Holiday. She was nonplussed that anyone would come to Richmond (basically an Army town because it is right next to Cattrick Garrison) for a Holiday. We assured her that it was lovely.
We decide to try to find Pen Hill on our way back home. Pen Hill is a local landmark that is mentioned constantly in the Harry Grimm mysteries we have read (10 so far) but we have never quite figured out where it is located. We finally did and got to stare at it for awhile as we were stopped dead on the highway by a herd of dairy cows heading for the barn! As we were hoping for a livestock event, this was one more item we could check off of our list.
So onward, upward and downward, over hill, moor and dale, we take one of our favorite scenic drives back to Gunnerside. Almost got killed by a speeding Miata but otherwise, incredibly beautiful. Deb has taken picture after picture of the views from the tops of the moors but a picture just doesn’t do the scenery justice. We will miss this.
Home after 6pm. Drinks in front of the fire. Salmon and red beans & rice for dinner. Reading after clean-up and to bed for our penultimate night in Burnside Cottage.
Tuesday morning dawns bright and beautiful in Swaledale. We start the day with our final home cooked “full English” breakfast. Mark even included his favorite baked beans! Deb did not partake! When we return home, we will be on a quest to locate typical English breakfast sausage, as we have developed quite a taste for it. We may end up searching the internet for recipes and stuffing our own! Another project for Mark to tackle. After breakfast we started collecting clothes and towels to toss into the laundry pile for the miniature washing machine tucked under the counter in the kitchen. We have, we hope, gathered all of our belongings that have been spread over the premises. There is no doubt that we will leave something behind, but not to worry, nothing is irreplaceable!
For the evening, we clean up remaining cheese and crackers, together with wine and reminisce about our time here. It has truly been the vacation of a life time. We have spent a glorious month exploring the Yorkshire Dales, gaining a new appreciation of the history, from pre-Roman conquest times, through the Middle Ages, the lead mining of the industrial revolution, and into the sheep and dairy farming of the middle 20th century. Now tourism is the primary industry in this gem of a National Park. We will never forget our time here. Tomorrow we head off in our Kia towards London for the last leg of our Great Adventure-through the Chunnel and into Southwestern France.
