The Tale of the River and the Missing Footballs
Good morning campers and welcome to the third and final part of my ‘Tales from the Dales Trail’: the 80 mile walk linking Ilkley, north west of Leeds, with Windermere, the iconic ‘capital’ of The English Lake District.
I started my backpacking trek on Tuesday morning (18 August), by 2.30pm on Thursday (20 August) I had finished.
My legs and little toe are very pleased that I had.
I started this walk differently and so it seemed appropriate to finish it differently too.
I chose to start from my own front door rather than Ilkley. In distance terms there wasn’t a huge difference: 2km according to Google Maps. Only 2 extra kilometres for my chosen route from home. Having started differently, it seemed kind of neat to finish differently too.
On Wednesday evening I realized that my end destination needed to change and I was now aiming for Oxenholme just shy of Windermere where I could get a mid afternoon train back to North Yorkshire.
My daughter Rosie has organised a big community arts event in Pateley Bridge this weekend, starting Friday (today) and apparently I’m once again the designated ‘Health and Safety!’ officer and coordinator of the set up. “Back to life, back to reality”🎶😜 I mused.
I actually prefer the title of ‘Common Sense Officer’ rather than that eye rolling term of ‘Elf and Safety!’
H&S in modern day Britain is often very boring and over the top, in my humble opinion of course.
So my loose connection to The Dales Trail became even more tenuous, on the back of that decision.
I did reflect that I might start getting a reputation for not finishing these challenges.
I was blown out by circumstances out of my control, on the 48 km ‘Welsh 3000-ers’ trail in July and now I had ‘started but not finished’ the Dales Trail.
Tut tut.
As you may know, in recent times I’ve taken the view that it’s the ‘journey’, not the destination that counts.
So I didn’t quite make it to Windermere after all.
It doesn’t matter, I have ‘wandered (not lonely) as a cloud’ in that area plenty of times.
I have always liked change, so adapting my route was no big deal and besides, I reasoned, readjusting your target provides great opportunity for personal navigation training.
On Thursday morning I lay on my inflated mattress in my tent and listened to the gentle pattering of drizzle in the tent. When it’s wet, it takes a significant mental effort to unzip your sleeping bag, unzip your tent and crawl outside to confront the elements of the day.
A wet and soggy Yorkshire Dales Trail didn’t feel too appealing at 06.45. It had rained heavily overnight: a storm was forecast, but I’m not sure it was actually ‘Storm Force’. Fortunately I had been snug as a bug in my luxury accommodation⛺️. But my body was so stiff. I was pretty shattered last night, inevitable, I guess, as I had walked a 27 mile trail and it was hard going at times. Pretty elevated too as I snuck round and besides Yorkshire’s famous 3 Peaks.
The weather had been great, much better than forecast and on a couple of occasions I hooked up with some really nice walkers which helped to make it a much more pleasant experience especially when it did start to hurt.
One of those walkers was also called Martin, a professional author who writes crime thrillers set in Manchester. His books are million copy bestsellers apparently.
On the trails of England, just as on mainland Europe, you meet some incredibly interesting and talented people.
Once pitched on the pretty village of Dent I had ignored the lure of my ‘boil in a bag’ dehydrated meals and instead opted for the snug comforts of The George and Dragon inn on the cobbled High Street.
As I typed my blog for the Kettlewell to Dent (Day 2) stage of my walk, I munched on pizza, washed down with a pint of IPA.
Mercifully my experience with pubs and landlords had changed dramatically. The landlady was lovely: kind and considerate. (She actually gave me a phone charger as I seemed to have lost mine: I found it later on, it was actually only lost in the bottom of my rucsac).
The pizza she served was delicious, even better with a bowl of crispy chips, drizzled with salt and vinegar. My carb intake was unashamed high! I needed it.
On to a comment about my (too) heavy backpack.
Rucsac living is tricky! No matter how prepared and ordered you are with your packing, the item you want is nearly aways at the bottom: or else you have stowed it so securely, you can’t remember where and you have to pull out everything in order to locate it. A Rucsac design with ‘pull out and labelled drawers’ seems an attractive development to me at least: but I suspect it is a design concept with no chance of becoming reality.
My experience of pub managers had improved with my interaction with the Landlady of Dent. The grumpiness I had witnessed in previous hostelry interactions on the same day had disappeared.
I encourage you to visit the George and Dragon if you ever go to Dent: it’s a great place to eat.
Dent itself is very pretty.
Unfortunately my walk into the town was undocumented and uncharged, as my phone had died.
As I was camped on the far side of town, I had no opportunity to photograph it in daylight and my little toe was sore enough for me to dismiss the idea of walking back to the village centre to get a couple of those shots.
Trust me though. Dent’s cobbled high street makes it picture postcard material, as this internet based photo shows.
So finally, and still somewhat reluctantly, I rolled out of my pit and proceeded to get my final day rolling.
The camp site I stayed on was pretty nice. £12.00 for a flat grassy pitch and good clean facilities.
It was still a slightly irritation that the showers ran on a pay meter.
The night I arrived I had approached the shower block full of anticipation for a shower, especially after that long arduous 27 mile walk.
There was a family changing room which I had baggsied. Perfect for an ‘all in one’ approach to personal hygiene. Annoyingly, it carried a 50p extra metered charge for a shower.
Stripped to my full morning glory and full of anticipation I put in my 50 pence worth: 2 x 20p + 1 x 10p and pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
There was no coin reject button.
Damn!
Maybe it needed to be a 50p piece?
I inserted a 50p coin and pressed the button again….. and again….. on repeat!
Nothing!
Grrrrr.
I was so disappointed and frustrated. It was a real flat moment.
Unfortunately I had no energy or desire to re-dress myself, walk the 400 metres back up the camping field to the farmhouse to report my dilemma and seek support.
Improvisation is the name of the game when trekking and camping.
So I strip washed from the tiniest basin I’ve ever used.
Getting my feet into that sink required great dexterity and a sense of balance that I never realised I had.
Of course strip washing works to a fashion, but it’s not the same rejuvenating experience that a good shower provides.
I thought back nostalgically: only 12 hours ago to my morning shower with never-ending and free piping hot water on Kettlewell’s camp site:
I mourned its loss!
Strip wash number 2 took place the next morning. I still had no 50p’s and to be honest, I had no trust in that shower or its meter.
It was the very worst type of slot machine in my view.
So dressed and packed by 08.20, I optimistically approached the cafe opposite the camp site which the owner had told me would be open by 08.30.
It wasn’t and more importantly there was no sign of life inside.
Reluctantly and with a commendable ‘it is, what it is’ mentality, I shouldered my 14kg ‘beast of burden’ and proceeded to hit my newly designed trail, now both showerless and breakfast-less.
Yuck!
At least the heavy rain that was forecast, never materialized.
It was gently drizzling but not of enough quantity to put on my waterproof jacket.
I rang Nicky to tell her to expect me to arrive in Skipton at 4pm, travel permitting, and in doing so completely missed my path!
Another schoolboy error: tiny errors galore!
‘Things could only get better!’ 🎶
Thankfully they did.
Gnarly tree roots, greasy from the rain overnight, made me focus on coordinating my feet.
The unique patterns formed by those roots were beautiful though.
The riverside path I followed for the first 4 miles as I approached Sedbergh was stunning, but also very wet.
It is good to report that the river was full and flowing. No shortage of water in the grim north then!
The return of damp feet didn’t help my increasingly grumbling little toe on the right side.
Wet socks and blisters are uncomfortable bedfellows.
Truth be told, that toe has not fully recovered from my 650 mile Portuguese/Spanish Camino in March/April 2026.
It remains ‘bloody but unbowed’ …… and poised to drop off! 3 of my other toe nails are still the same: blackened to the point where they could be regarded as having a black nail varnished finish.
Worry not! I’m banned from toe photography apparently!
Donkeys in a field were a good distraction to any toe pain.
Cows grazing in a field gave me more short bovine shrift!
The official trail splits off through Sedbergh; but my new route went more directly west and was totally home made.
I passed a some barn filling up with freshly split logs. I liked the look of that splitter and as usual, I secretly coveted those logs.
An old Methodist chapel, beautiful in its simplicity, paid homage to the simple traditional expression of faith as expressed in the 19th century.
I followed a slowly moving bin wagon for the next mile along a farm track, before taking a breather for 20 minutes at a timely and well positioned bench.
I was mindful of timings: I still had the 2.25pm train fromOxenholme to target.
I was also mindful of my tummy rumbling. No breakfast and no coffee are poor companions on long distance trails, where you are always starving anyway. Over the previous 2 days, I had exerted myself a little!
Fortunately I still had an apple, satsuma and trail bar, now totally transformed into a squashed ball.
Beggars cannot be choosers.
Google Maps had confirmed that I would find no eateries before the train station.
So I nibbled my apple to the core before tossing it to a scrawny sheep nibbling on some sun withered grass.
I was grateful for it, even if my woolly friend took not a blind bit of notice.
What do sheep know the Dales Trail and its landlords have in common?
The scenery was still pretty and my hastily composed route of footpaths, minor roads and trails was working well: the M6 crossing point just beyond Killington was looming.
A lovely old bridge spanned a small tributary of the river that flowed through Dent.
Collapsed dry stone walls still ‘trumpeted’ the efforts of their builders from at least a century before.
Wow! What hard workers they were!
All was well!
Famous last words …….
As my footpath ran out!
Stopped!
At a river!
Not particularly deep, but definitely wet and definitely unbridged.
My options were limited: retrace 3 km and try to loop round or embrace the adventure.
I was reminded of that children’s classic: ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’.
“Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, got to go through it.”
And that’s where my Crocs, which had happily hung off my rucsac throughout the walk, came into their own.
All Croc-ed up and ready to go, I waded that river.
The footpath (of sorts) as my photo shows, reconnected on the other side. It was only when I really zoomed in to my OS Maps that I saw there was no dry river crossing marked on that map.
Another river based school boy error. I do have previous form for not checking rivers out closely enough.
It was still a nasty little 50 metre scramble up a nettle strewn gully, thick with brambles and trees.
Undeterred and still wearing my river waders I macheted my way though, coping a few stings in my sockless feet in the process, but now also carrying 2 rescued footballs, un-punctured and high in quality.
Clearly they had been booted into the river by over exuberant children (or their parents) from the house garden adjacent to the river.
I did the honourable thing and tried to return them to their owner.
I rang the bell of the house to hand over the balls, but there was no reply.
So I left them on the bonnet of the Kia parked outside.
I chuckled to myself as I wondered how the returning owners would work that one out.
I sat on a piece of stone to change my footwear and nearly jumped out of my skin as an older lady came round the side of the house.
In fairness, she jumped even more.
I listened to myself desperately trying to make my story sound plausible.
As I muttered my unconvincing tale of the footpath that ran out and the river crossing that followed, she didn’t appear to be listening and seemed intent on shuffling away as quickly as possible.
Clearly she feared that she was in the proximity of a mad man.
I gave up trying to rationalise my situation and exited stage right onto the new footpath.
My good deed of the day was done, the footballs reunited with their kickers and I had got not one word of thanks for my admirable rescue efforts.
“It is what it is” as Camino Steve likes to say.
Despite the shock of that awkward exchange, I was quite proud of my little adventure.
Trail walking involves having to problem solve galore.
I find that ‘finding a way on the Way’ is stimulating in a weird sort of way.
Within 20 minutes I was in Killington which looked a pretty enough village.
The climb out of there was a total killer though.
‘Killinghim’ would make a better name, I thought drily!
I was dying!
As ever, the steep, lactic acid inducing climb eventually came to an end.
Twenty minutes later I crossed the bridge over the M6 and marvelled at the completely different pace of life I witnessed, as the cars and wagons below me whizzed towards their individual destinations.
An idyllic looking farm lay some 500 metres east of the motorway. The noise from the traffic was stark and grating.
It reminded me why we had avoided buying a similarly idyllic property near Blubberhouses, back in 2021.
Idyllic in location and appearance, but so noisy from the traffic on its A59 reality.
From then on I had a 4 mile walk to Oxenholme station.
Uneventful really. I mostly stayed on the road, avoiding the siren call of parallel footpaths, which were long grassed and very wet.
I arrived 50 minutes early for my train.
My final photograph was of a gate on the drive of a private house: bizarrely decorated with a ‘bounty! of punctured basketballs. Each to their own I guess: but weird all the same!
And what is the collective noun for a ‘bunch of balls’? I was interested enough to consult Google for the answer!
It couldn’t!
Fortunately a local pub 400 metres from the station was open, the staff welcoming and so I started writing up this final draft of my journey with a suitable celebratory drink.
At Oxenholme, as I waited for my train, I saw the familiar railway warning signs: ‘Mind the Gap!’
As a long suffering Bristol City FC fan, it provided a pleasing reminder that however rubbish my team is, our local rivals, Bristol Rovers are far worse, and they have been for over 30 years!
2 hours later I exited the train in Skipton to be welcomed by my RHD (Red Hot Date ❤️) Nicky and my beautiful granddaughter, who was 2 just last week.
The 40 minute journey home was dominated by the repeated playing of the song behind the story of Tabby McTat, which is her current favourite.
And that was absolutely fine.
That song is just over 1 minute long. It was played on repeat at least 25 times.
It was good to be going home!
There’s actually no place like it!
The next morning in between setting up for the Arts Event and performing my long anticipated H&S duties, I sat in the Coco Joe’s Hot Chocolate cafe in Pateley Bridge, drinking my lovely hot chocolate and writing the last paragraphs of this blog.
As I wrote, I listened to my friend Charles who owns the shop with his wife Heather, and Josie who works there, busying themselves with their cocoa inspired routines.
Charles and Heather are lovely local friends who we have got to know better in recent times..
I remembered that I wrote very positively about the Heather’s I know in my blog on Day 1 of this trip: Heather Andrew is one of the best for sure!
Coco Joe’s! What a place!
Next time you are in Pateley make sure you go!
Charles even gave me my drink on the house!
What a gent!
That hot chocolate easily made up for the non events that were my previously lamented non shower and non breakfast earlier that morning!
Thanks for the read.
I hope you have enjoyed this trip into the west as much as I have.
My thanks again to Sarah who miraculously and patiently erases all my typos with such good grace.
Hopefully I’ll be back on the trails soon enough.
Happy weekend to you all!
For the locals amongst you, don’t forget that there is a fantastic arts based community event in Pateley Bridge today, Saturday 22 August if you fancy ‘a reet good day out!’
Martin x
Ps a few facts about my walk to finish.
* I walked 71 miles, 113km on my homemade version of The Dales Trail.
* I walked and slept 51 hours door to door.
*!I met a successful crime writer from Manchester, who was also also called Martin.
*I suffered one blister.
* My 14 kg pack was way too heavy and loaded with full wet weather gear which wasn’t actually needed.
* I met or heard about 3 grumpy landlords on the official trail and 2 lovely landladies. As I’m a ladies man at heart (in its most honourable form), I’ll take that as a win! 🤣
* This trail comes as ‘Highly Recommended”. It really is a thing of beauty!
And 36 hours on, my legs still ache! 🤣
Martin Moorman is a 61 year old retired Headteacher who lives with his wife Nicky, daughter Rosie and her family in North Yorkshire, UK. Happily married for 36 years, Martin and Nicky have 3 grown up children, Rosie, Harry and Jake, all happily married too.
In his spare time Martin loves walking, photography, blogging, football, renovating, cooking and chatting to anyone who will listen!
