When the wheels fell off: a hot 27km walk to Stump Cross Caverns and back

It is now 8 weeks since I tried to track down the Northern Lights in our new neighbourhood in North Yorkshire.

Part of the fun of that particular search was the ‘near miss’ of course.

Whilst those pesky lights failed to show up on that occasion, I had reassured myself that they will one day if I try hard enough to find them..

In the succeeding 8 weeks I have found myself fully immersed in our multi generational house purchase and the days have been long and hard as the renovation process starts. These are hard days, full of scrubbing, cleaning, ‘braying’, chopping, digging and lumping.

This is going to be a 5 year project minimum and it is hard graft. My left knee has become like that of ‘housemaid’ fame and I now seem to have a double knee cap!

Whilst the physical work is hard and seems to take some toll on this particular 56 year old’s body, I have no real regrets.

We are supremely privileged to live where we do and we do really appreciate it.

The natural world about us, as well as within our garden boundaries is stunning. Our month old pheasant chicks, saved from certain death when their mother abandoned the nest, are thriving. Florence, Fern and Phylis are extremely photogenic!

With the long awaited coming of summer as June wound its course, I was determined to take a bit of time out and get out for a long stroll.

For those of you who follow my blogs more regularly, you will know that I love a good yomp.

A 30-40km walk on a regular basis help clear my mind. The natural world boosts my soul and in this time of continued national uncertainty I find walking, long and hard, gives my emotions a well needed boost. I switch off and I find myself at home in the natural world that surrounds us all.

So it was that on this late-June early afternoon that I decided it would be fun to to try to walk to and from the famous Stump Cross Caverns, situated between Pateley Bridge and Grassington.

The weather was hot, easily 24 degrees and maybe higher and for the first time in months I was dressed in shorts and a T shirt alone.

So why Stump Cross Caverns?

Easy to answer.

My youngest son has just landed a summer job there and as he was due to finish work at 5pm on this particular afternoon, I thought it would be fun to walk there and then back with him as my companion.

I also wanted to share a bit of the story behind the Caverns and especially their interesting link to the current Covid pandemic.

As I trudged up the country lane that flanks our property I was hit with the stark realisation that it really was going to be a hot afternoon.

I passed a farmyard stuffed full with carrots. I resisted the temptation to go scrumping!

I was the only person ‘out and about’ and a lack of signal meant my music stream wasn’t playing.

So I was alone with nature once again: and all the happier for it.

A buttercup field dazzled on my right as I dropped down onto a now familiar Yorkshire Dales footpath.

Sheep shorn of their winter fleeces languidly watched me from their shady nooks.

As I clambered over a stile a mother duck and her 8 ducklings scrambled up the the bank of the small stream in panic and disappeared though a hole in the wall.

The footpaths became increasingly difficult too track.

This area of Yorkshire has overgrown footpaths a-plenty. It was just my luck to run into one from the outset. Then another, Then another!

Less than 15 minutes from home and I was already forced to go repeatedly ‘off piste.’

When I finally navigated myself back onto my chosen footpath I found my next stile blocked by tall and menacing stinging nettles.

The ‘stingers’ in these parts are ferocious. A burning sensation from their sting can often be felt up to 24 hours later. Despite the heat I lamented my decision to wear shorts. I had no chance of wading unscathed through that jungle of hurt.

With a silent apology to the yet unknown farmer and my deliberate trespass and I abandoned my trajectory and gingerly eased my way through a broken wall onto the nearest lane.

This particular lane conjured up memories of a ‘life’s like that experience’ from just a fortnight ago. On that particular morning I had set off to drive back to Halifax for a dental appointment. Given we still had possessions dotted around the homes of friends in Calderdale, I decided to take the trailer that had been left at the home we bought in April. In those early weeks I had put energy and effort into refurbishing the trailer to the point where it was now fully road worthy. Or so I thought!

Just 2 miles into my journey, the wheel fell off and I came to a shrieking and stuttering halt. For a moment, I sat in a sense of complete bewilderment. In one of my mirrors, (I couldn’t work out which) the wheel had come bouncing down the road and overtaken me and disappeared. It took me a few minutes to locate it: some 50 metres in front of the car lying in an overgrown ditch.

The axel of the trailer had snapped and I was now left with a one wheeled trailer!

Whilst this was a calamity and and the story clearly bears no testimony to my mechanical skills, (the trailer was obviously unfit for purpose) I was thankful that this had happened on a quiet country road, just 2 miles from home and that no one had been hurt. A mile further on and I would have been on the A59 and travelling nearer to 50mph.

I duly ditched the trailer on the road side and proceeded on to Halifax trailer-less.

That night, my entire family returned with me to the scene and we rescued the one wheeled trailer by strapping it to my old 40 year old wooden trailer and gingerly returning them both home at a maximum speed of 10 mph. Those 2 miles of recovery took about 15 minutes to drive!

The damaged trailer was duly given away free of charge later that week via Facebook Marketplace. Someone with welding abilities and the appropriate equipment had got themselves a bargain and I realised that my short lived days as a self-taught mechanic were well and truly over.

As I reflected on my curious incident with the trailer I remembered again just how the more familiar roads we travel have the ability to fill us with the most bitter and sweet of experiences. Life is like that!

My thoughts returned to my trail and to my dismay I discovered that my next footpath was equally overgrown and even harder to locate.

I had allowed nearly 3 hours to rendezvous with my son and at this rate I was definitely going to be several hours late.

The one person I did see all afternoon to check and confer on direction couldn’t help. She was a holidaymaker staying in an airbnb and clearly had no idea where the next path started.

Whilst my ability to find the path persistently tricky, the views in all directions were stunning.

A man made tapestry of drystone walls shimmered in the haze on every point of the compass. I appreciated the lure of the Dales even more and pinched myself that I was actually living there now.

I could see for miles.

The ‘golf balls’ of Menwith Hill RAF Station stood out miles away to the east and remained a constant visual companion for the whole of my journey. Ahead of me the lofty crags of Simon’s Seat above Appletreewick beckoned. I was tempted for a moment, but resisted and stuck to my unceasing navigational challenges as I approached Greenhow Hill over Braithwaite Moor.

The dry scrub of fire scorched heather from last year bit painfully into my naked shins and once again I regretted wearing shorts.

I was tempted to pack it in there and then. I had travelled less than 2 miles in over an hour and had yet to find a footpath that was easy to access and in the right place according to my map!

This walk was already promising to be my biggest recent walking challenge yet.

The irony that I was walking in the best weather of the last 10 months since my retirement in September 2020 wasn’t lost on me. It reminded me of how funny life can be. Our day to day living is full of ironies. Frequently what we think will be easy, often proves to be the hardest.

I reflected that ‘The Law of the Sod’ was in full flow on this walk, just as it had been with the incident with my trailer, as I finally hit the welcome tarmac of Greenhow Hill and the sanctuary of an access road onto a farm track.

The herd of cows chewing on their cud were not pleased to see me.

The local cows round here have a habit of galloping towards walkers and backing off at the last minute. It can be an unnerving experience. This time I was confronted with a cacophony of menacing moo’s and 40 odd cows running towards me. I left as quickly as I arrived by trespassing again and vaulting a fence.

It was only then that I was fully rewarded with a visual spectacle like no other.

Overhead lapwing, Curlew and Red Kites dominated the sky. A pair of lapwings confronted a large red kite as it circled menacingly overhead. It plunged and soared to no avail and eventually took the hint and headed away to the west.

The Dales National Park in all its glory was spread in front off me.

I could see the 3 Yorkshire Peaks in the far distance and a true wilderness lay all around me.

Man’s influence on this landscape was still clear as dry stone walls were visible both near and far, but a wilderness it remained and I was totally alone within its heart.

The rest of my walk to Stump Cross was beautiful and it gave me a chance to walk without the need for navigational concentration and reflect on the many wonderful things I had seen in the last 8 weeks.

I just hope the medley of photos below gives the reader the same sense of appreciation as I felt when I saw them up front and personal through my lens.

Our 6 Brahma chicks, the sons and daughters of Laurence the posturing cockerel from Holmfirth, which we hatched in May have now grown to the same size and even bigger than the 7 battery hens we rescued from a battery farm back in May. As big as the Brahma’s are, they are still stuck in the lower ranks of the pecking order and frequently suffer a peckish rebuke from their battery ‘friends’. One day soon that pecking order will turn for sure.

Only the night before we had been treated to a blood red sunset.

The red sky at night, the night before had been spectacular.

I arrived at the Caverns just 10 minutes late.

On the way back my son told me some of the history behind these famous caves.

Discovered in the mid 19th century they had proved a popular day trip during the Victorian era when the towns folk from the principal industrial centres of West Yorkshire would catch the train to Pateley Bridge or Grassington and then pay a shilling to be transported by horse and cart to the caves.

The Covid pandemic of the last 16 months has evidently provided a severe challenge to Lisa and her partner Nick, who own and run the caves and who now employ my son.

During his interview for the job, I’d discovered how they had persistently missed out on Governmental Covid subsidies and funding grants during Lockdown’s 1, 2 and 3 which had been afforded to other cave owners in the north of England.

To keep their business alive they had resorted to quintessential English eccentricity and fundraised. They had even raffled their motor home. This Crowdfunding initiative had been a real success and on the back of it, and in an attempt to remain solvent as the Pandemic continued to constrict the tourist economy, they had now committed a holiday let in nearby Pateley Bridge to a similar crowdfunding raffle.

They deserve every success. They are really nice people.

Thankfully the caves have now reopened and whilst Covid restrictions continue to affect their ability to run a profitable business, at least Lisa, Nick and their team of staff have weathered this latest Covid storm. They deserve every success and I wish them well.

Our walk back home was equally beautiful and equally sweaty. The air was cooler and thankfully the local midges that had pestered me painfully earlier in the week were nowhere to be seen. Even so, after 22 kilometres of being baked by the sun, I was now feeling the effects of a long hot walk in the June sunshine.

The nearest pub was just a mile away to the south and seemed an appealing distraction. After all, we could seek liquid nourishment there and then even phone home for a lift

I guess father and son are both bloody minded enough to resist those sort of temptations though and with a brief hint of regret for that missing pint of ‘Yorkshire’s Best’ we took the more northerly footpath route back home.

Our minds were set on watching the France v Germany match in the Euro 2020 football tournament and whilst late, we at least made it for the second half of that ‘Group of Death’ game.

As I unlaced my boots on the stone step outside my front door, I caught sight of my midge bitten legs. They weren’t a pretty sight, but they did provide the perfect analogy to what I have learned and have to keep learning on a daily basis since we moved to this stunning part of Yorkshire 3 months ago.

People are known in these parts that famous saying: ‘You don’t get owt for nowt.’ The best translation I can give would be ‘You won’t get anything with putting the effort in.’

Lisa and Nick had no doubt understood this more than most through the strain of trying to run a tourist attraction during the Covid 19 pandemic.

I’d remembered the ‘owt’ saying during the first few weeks of our home renovation project.

And I remembered it again on this walk, where my bitten and battered legs had suffered from sting and thorn. Despite this I had remembered that in nearly every situation, the best things in life always have a cost.

I’d enjoyed a beautiful 27 kilometre walk in the heat of a Yorkshire summer. The ‘nowt’ of the first few kilometres where footpaths had given me the runaround had finally given me the ‘owt’ of an appreciation for a stunning wilderness that is truly like no other. Best of all, this wilderness playground is right on my doorstep.

I hope you enjoyed the read and the attached photographs. You can follow my future blogs free of charge by subscribing to my WordPress site.

As 19 July looms and the promise of Lockdown Freedom becomes more possible, I wish you and your families the very best.

In the meantime tonight could be the night! It is where England could be European Champions: in my life time. Wow!

Whisper it quietly but maybe just maybe it is coming home!

Enjoy the match, if enjoyment is actually possible!

Best Wishes

Martin