Beating the Weather

For our last day we made a journey to the Mecca of the area for walkers, Malhamdale. The area is packed with interesting footpaths and there are the local beauty spots of Malham Cove and Malham Tarn to enjoy. We'd picked up a great walks leaflet at our caravan site, showing at least 6 back to back walks to choose from. We'd picked the blue route to start but we'd thought we might combine it with one of more of the other routes.

However, no sooner had we parked the Bearmobile at Malham, than the rain started falling. We decided to have  a look round the National Park visitors centre while we waited for the rain to stop.  It didn't seem to want to, even though the staff at the centre agreed that it wasn't forecast. We didn't want to waste our last day though, so we donned our waterproofs and set off, thinking we'd go at least as far as the cove.

As you will from our photo, as we got closer to the Cove, the rain stopped and our waterproofs came off. We were therefore able to plan and look forward to, a much longer walk.

We climbed up the steep steps to the left of the cove then enjoyed exploring the wonderful limestone pavement at the top ...

We think it is great that Health and Safety has given Malham Cove a miss and there is no safety fence or warnings just before the drop at the top of the Cove.

We continued to Malham Tarn where we tucked into our sandwiches and then we ranged a bit further afield until our path linked up with our lunch spot from 5 days earlier. We returned to Malham via Goredale Scar, enjoying a great cup of tea, in sunshine, from a mobile refreshment van just after the path to the Scar, after which we headed down to Janet's Foss ...

... after overnight rain and the rain from earlier, the waterfall looked pretty good. All too soon we were back at the Bearmobile and heading back to Ribby. We took her awning down in the dry, as rain was forecast for the morning. We then headed into Grassington to treat ourselves to a take away curry - delicious - and a great way to end a great holiday.

Lots of love

The B.U. caravanning party xxx

Stepping Back in Time

For day 4 we had something quite different planned. We'd all wanted to visit Beamish, the Living Museum of the north, for quite a while. While it wasn't quite on our doorstep, it was close enough for us to make the journey.

It was well worth the drive. The Beamish site was huge. We had arrived by 11:00 and when the site closed at 5:00 we still hadn't visited the fairground and had to whizz round other venues.

Talking of whizzing, there were various ways to get round the site including the fine tram and the vintage bus picture above. You could also travel on the steam elephant which was a wonderful reproduction of an early steam train with pistons travelling vertically rather than horizontally. Mind you, you could have walked the short distance of the track quicker than the steam elephant travelled ...

... that wasn't the point though, it was all about the experience.

During the course of the day we visited an 1820s hall and gardens, a 1900s town, a 1940s farm and a 1900s pit village and colliery.

We made friends with back yard pigs ...

... we went down a drift mine with very low roof - we were the only members of the party who didn't need hard hats as we were not tall enough to have to walk bent double trying not to bang our heads. We had great admiration for a game old lady who must have been well into her 80s who made it along the wet, dark seam.

... we also tested out an Anderson shelter

... there was plenty of room for us on the bench but it probably wasn't much fun for a gathering of adults and we felt it lacked a few mod cons! 

Thank you Beamish for a great day out. 

Lots of love 

The B.U. caravaners xxx

The Dales Way Revisited

Following a day off, we went walking again. We were staying very close to the route of the Dales Way which you may remember Yorkie and I, along with Gio, walked last September. As this was such a fine walk we were quite eager to revisit a stretch or two, and also to share the delights of the route with our friends, who had missed out first time round.

We picked the stretch each side of Kettlewell to walk and turned it into a circular walk by adding some new stretches of footpath. It was a big climb up to join the high level section into Kettlewell, but we all enjoyed the flattish walking, once we were up, and the great views. 

After Kettlewell we joined the riverside path up to Starbottom. It is a beautiful stretch and very popular with all sorts of walkers. The photo above is a new one, but we're fairly sure we'd posed for the same picture previously.

By the time we'd worked our way back to the bear mobile we'd covered over 15 miles, so we'd had a goodly walk. We'd kind of got used to one way walking and forgotten that you can only go half as far if you have to return as well! Fortunately the weather was good and we had plenty of daylight left.

Lots of love

The B.U. caravanners xxx

Anyone for Licquorice?

On day 2 we indulged ourselves with a day's racing. Yorkshire is one of the best places to go racing as there are so many racecourses to choose from. As our aim is to visit all the racecourses in the country we needed to go somewhere new, so there was only one choice - Pontefract.


We knew nothing about Pontefract apart from its association with the black sticky stuff, and didn't have high hopes of the racecourse, but boy were we in for a surprise. It is a lovely course set in parkland with a lake and it has a very pleasant olde worlde feel giving it bags of character. Of course, being there in such glorious weather added to its appeal.


So, the course was great, and the racing was very good. There were some beautiful horses and competitive racing. We'd read that Pontefract is a stiff track, both hilly and undulating, so horses, and jockeys, unused to its demands can struggle. We adopted a strategy of backing horses who had run there and done well previously. It worked, we were all slightly up on our betting at the end of the day. We also enjoyed seeing Frankie Dettori winning both of his 2 races and showing us just why he is one of the best.


We found an old set of scales for weighing out and in, in the ladies toilets
of all places ( please don't ask what we were doing in the ladies). Patrick went off the scale at 15 stone, so demonstrated that he has been drinking too much Guinness recently. His excuse was that he is on holiday.

Lots of love,

The B.U. Caravanners

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First Day Wanderings

Day 1 of our holiday dawned bright and sunny and there was a choice of interesting footpaths from the site to explore. The bearmobile therefore had a day off to recover from a long drive up, and we set off on paw with rucksacks bulging with sandwiches (not marmalade) and other goodies to sustain us, as we knew that fitness freak Chelmer would take us on a long trek.

We went over moor and down dale (literally) then some farm track and then lots more moor. We weren't far from the tourist honeypot of Malham, but were just far enough away to have all the stunning countryside to ourselves. There was no other walker in sight all day, just a handful of mountain bikers, who were gone as soon as seen.

Although we'd had a relaxed morning and didn't set out until 11:30 we'd done 7 miles before we stopped for lunch and did virtually the same again after lunch. We'd got used to this sort of distance walking Offa's Dyke.

Just as we finished lunch, the rain started, but thankfully it wasn't heavy, so we continued with the walk as planned - no short cuts for us! We didn't hang around though and romped along over 3 straight miles of Mastiles Lane crossing Kilnsey Moor, before turning in the direction of the site.

We apologise for the lack of photos to accompany this post but we blame the rain and the size of the walking party - we all thought the others had taken pics - and also, too much time spent talking to all the friendly sheep. Our next post will have photos though, we promise.

Lots of love

The B.U. Caravanners xxx






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Flying the Flag of the White Rose

Dear readers

We'd like to continue the precedent set recently of reporting to you live from our travels. Yes, we are on our travels again, and this time we are quite a large travelling party: Ungi, Jimmy, George, Yorkie, Patrick, Chelmer, Curly, Randolph and Santa Bear. The size of our party reflects a) the range of activities we are getting up to (all interests catered for) and b) the fact that we are away in our beloved caravan, Ribby the Eriba. This means we have a bear mobile with us and there is plenty of room for us all in Ribs.



We are in Yorkshire and Yorkie and Randolph are particularly pleased and proud to be in the heart of their home county. We are staying at the Caravan Club's Wharfedale site, a short hop out of Grassington. A very fine site it is too with a great location with lots of good walking straight from the caravan door.

We'll be back tomorrow to let you know the exciting adventures we've been having.

Lots of love

The B.U. Caravanners xxx

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