The Great Laund Oak is no More!

One of our most famous trees, and our oldest in Yorkshire, the great Laund Oak is no more! I didn’t know until I visited today on a walk from Bolton Abbey using the Sunday Dalesbus…

Lead Mining – a Black & White Issue?

A while ago, I bought a black & white film as I wanted to try one again, having not used one for ages. I always think black and white is a bit subject-specific though…

The other day I was offered a lift for my day’s walk to an area of old lead mines on the moors above Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales. What a perfect subject I thought and grabbed the film out of my drawer and loaded it into my spare 35mm camera, the Olympus Trip 35.

My Dinnertime Walk

Wherever I work, I always go for a walk in my dinner-hour and explore the area widely until I find walks I like. They all need to be around three-quarters of an hour long so I can get something to eat first. This is my current one…

Twistleton Climbing – Should Have Stayed in Bed!

Bank Holiday Mon 25 May 2015
I have spates of everything going wrong for me and need to learn that, when I’m in the middle of one of those, I need to stop doing anything at all and preferably stay in bed! This was one of those days…

Brimham Rocks

Luckily for me, I don’t live too far from this superb area of rock architecture but I don’t visit nearly often enough. On the times I do, I unfortunately get stuck on many of the rock towers as I find many of them easy to ascend but hellish to get back down again!

Richard’s Booze Cruise II

For the second year running, Richard decided that, for his birthday, he wanted another pub crawl (for last year’s, see Wilful Wensleydale Wandering post) – this looks to be becoming a permanent annual fixture. However, after the ‘fun’ we had this year on the roads, I’m thinking of moving his birthday to June!

Settle to Malham with Rye Loaf Hill

During winter 2012, while I was still trying to get walking normally again after my broken big toe, I decided to do an old walk from Settle to Malham I’d done years ago with a group from work. I’d done a lot of my recovery walks around Settle, mainly exploring the limestone area of Warrendale Knotts and its caves. While I’d been doing these, I’d had my eye on Rye Loaf Hill – a landmark which is in view from miles around – so decided to incorporate that into my walk.

Drifting Back Into Winter

Thu 28 March 2013
I was out for my late-afternoon walk on Wednesday and was struck by the sheer beauty of the huge snowdrifts lining the walls along my route – unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me – typical! I attempted to rectify the situation the next day by taking out two cameras – my proper (film) camera – you’ll have to wait for the photos from that one though – and my point-and-shoot cheap digital one. These are the instant photos from the digi-camera.

It’s a shame I didn’t have the cameras the day before as, due to the slightly warmer temperatures, the snow had started to melt and slump slightly – this one’s still quite sharp though…

Wilful Wensleydale Wandering

Sat 12 Jan 2013

Me and Richard behaving badly in Wensleydale! Mind you, when you read the link at the foot of the post, we weren’t behaving anything like as badly as the couple in the news article at the end of this post who were in the same area – we missed it unfortunately! 😉

It was Richard’s birthday in January and, as he is a bit of a ‘guy-who-has-everything’, I didn’t know what to get him so asked him for suggestions. His suggestion will probably be a popular one amongst guys reading this site – he said he wanted a pub crawl!

THE (Yorkshire) 3 Peaks – My Route…

July 2007

After saying for years that, coming from Yorkshire, I really ought to have done the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge (or THE Three Peaks Challenge), I eventually decided, early in 2007, that I should get on with it. I asked Richard if he wanted to do it and he agreed to come with me. Also, it being a challenge walk, I decided to get it sponsored in aid of my favourite humane research charity.