Hannah and the Dogs

Our Granddaughter Hannah loves dogs but unfortunately her brother Leo is very frightened of them so when an opportunity came up yesterday for a walk with David's dogs Bowman and Ruger she jumped at the chance but Leo preferred to stay with Granny. This was another walk with Tom after his recent big operation to get him back walking on a regular basis and today it would be 2.5 miles. 

Ruger is full of energy and can smell a biscuit in your pocket from a distance. 

Bowman likes to walk in front and lead the way and stayed beside Hannah most of the walk

Time for a rest at the Round House

The official walk photo with the dogs facing the right way

Hannah was in her element and loved every minute she was with the dogs

Leading Ruger for the last stage of the walk

The Shawl at Leyburn in Wensleydale

It's our second day in Reeth and Bob is taking me this morning on a 6 mile walk called The Leyburn Shawl. It starts at Leyburn and heads up Wensleydale on a limestone escarpment called the Shawl and then crosses for the return on the other side of the Dale.

This is the path we take from Leyburn looking backwards with The Wensleydale valley on our right.

The view looking down into Wensleydale with Pencil Crags in the distance.

This was the engine room for the Keld Heads Smelt Mill

The walk now passes through lovely open fields with the Wensleydale Railway passing through them

A lovely downhill section through grassy fields into the valley bottom

The Village green in Wensley

Wensley church

This is Low Wood Lane an ancient track leading up from the river Ure to Leyburn. Used as a footpath it is very difficult walking on this surface but it must have been used for hundreds of years. 

After finishing our walk we headed to The  Tennants Auction House for lunch with the girls who were there to see what was being auctioned today. On the way back over the moor to Reeth we saw loads of Grouse but this was the only one I managed to photograph.

A superb walk with plenty to see and well signposted.

Round Potholm On My Own

As everybody else is either on holiday or away it was a case of walking on my own today so I decided to look at some of the work being done on Langholm Walks network by Ranger Ross Gemmill. The steps from the Potholm road end needed fixing and Ross has made an excellent job and has also changed the arrow on the signpost to the correct direction. 

The new steps. Most of the work being done is now complete and this was just one of the smaller tasks. He has put in new stiles, new duckboards, non slip patches on bridges etc, and several other improvements. 

After the rain overnight and into this morning it cleared up dramatically for my walk round Potholm. This field of Barley is looking good so hopefully a period of dry weather will enable the farmer to harvest it.  

The river Esk at Potholm Bridge. The river seems to have been in a permanent flood for many weeks.

Some of the many young Pheasants released into the woods

The rearing of Pheasants is big business and the shooting of them in the autumn and winter brings much revenue into the area and creates a good number of jobs. They may have a short life but they are well looked after and quite a number of them escape the guns. 

A solitary tree left for the raptors to perch on. Much of the wooded are of the walk has now been felled and it has opened up the area. Next spring there should be a good display of wild flowers where there used to be trees.

Mr Grumpy having a rest at the Kilngreen

On the road to Potholm is this bird scarer. I stood for a while watching a lot of Sparrows feeding of the grains of Barley and then the scarer went off and they immediately left only to return a few minutes later. 

Clerkhill to Raeburnside

We started early today as rain is forecast for the afternoon. The starting point was Eskdalemuir Kirk and here are Peter & John inspecting a memorial to a former minister. 

The first part of the walk we followed the Clerkhills Burn and as we reached Windshield Rig we saw a huge number of Deer on the hillside next to the forest. They appeared to be one Stag and a huge following of his females. There are about 10 or 12 in this photo but there were a good few more lower down in the valley.

Here you can see the Stag surrounded by his females. I have never seen as many Deer together in our area before. 

It is 4 years since I last walked this route and since then a new fence has been put up so this diverted us from the route we intended to take and we had to climb up to the ridge and then follow the fence until we reached the summit Wisp Hill. I am not a lover of Barbed Wire Fences and the people who put them up should place stiles at certain points to allow walkers better access. 

We dropped back down to Raeburnside which is a very remote place to live with a very bad road leading to it.  

This is the White Esk as we approach the village of Eskdalemuir 

Eskdalemuir Kirk

Our route today. we finished our walk before the rain and then headed to The Eskdalemuir Hub for lunch where we were the only customers. This will be John's last walk for 3 weeks as he soon heads of to USA for an Eastern Seaboard Cruise to celebrate his 70th Birthday.

Crossing from Tarras to Ewes Valleys

After a 2 week break we are back walking again but with reduced numbers. Tom is recuperating from his operation and Niall is away on holiday. It was a 2 car day with my my car being left at Ewes Hall and Peter taking us over into the Tarras valley to begin the walk towards Cooms and then over the bridge and through the felled forest area to the top of Auldshiels Hill. There was plenty of wildlife about but none of it close enough to photograph very well. We saw several Goats, a couple of Deer and loads of Raptors. This photo is taken at Jim Telford's seat near Arkleton Cottage. The weather was perfect.

Looking over the Ewes valley with Arkleton House the building in the left hand corner.  

Arkleton Hill in the distance.

A closer look at Arkleton House as we come down the hill. 

Looking through a gap in the hills to the Esk valley and the wind turbines at The Craig near Westerkirk. It was a most enjoyable walk with lunch in Whitshiels Cafe at the finish and then a visit to see Tom at his house in Walter Street.

Weekend at Haven Holiday Village in The South Lakes

We left on Common Riding afternoon for a holiday village near Grange over Sands in the South Lakes with Fiona and Hannah & Leo. This was an excellent venue with plenty to do for the kids. These are just some of the activities they took part in. The longest activity undertaken by Hannah was building a raft and once they had built it they had to don wetsuits and life jackets and sail it from one end of the lake to the other.  

Preparing the ropes to go round the barrels

Almost complete

Because of the strong wind they were towed across the lake and then had to make their way back.

Many of them ended up in the lake

It was great fun and Hannah had a fab time

Almost there but just as they arrived back at the boathouse they had all to jump into the lake to retrieve the paddles. 

On Saturday it was blowing a gale and when we arrived back at the caravan the glass table had shattered into a million pieces probably caused by a wind blown item hitting it. 

Leo had great fun in this paddle boat in the swimming pool 

These trikes proved to be great fun as well 

Leo and I took part in Archery and with 7 people taking part he was better than them all except for me and I just beat him narrowly.