Went out for another little jolly yesterday. When the weather is fine and the we are all off school (the children) and work (wonderful man and me) I hate to be indoors. It seems such a waste of the day.
So we jumped in the car and headed off to Keld. I love it there, it's only a tiny village slap bang in the middle of the Pennine Way and the Coast to Coast for all you walkers out there.
For me, when you walk down by the river, its like walking through a fairy glen! Every thing is green and mossy, ferns spring up all around you in the shade of the rocks. The dark green is peppered with wild foxgloves and other little floral gems. The river runs rust brown and shallow, inviting you to dip a toe or skim a stone!
look at the way the rocks have formed here, they almost look fluid.
We stopped here for
Two big mugs of tea!
Back in the car on the way home, we took a spur of the moment detour and visited Tan Hill Inn. As you can see from the sign (and from the adverts on the telly for double glazing) Tan Hill is Britain's highest pub at 1732 feet above sea level!
And in the middle of absolutely nowhere! Go on, have a look on Google maps, there's nothing for miles all around!
After donning our waterproofs an braving the wind, we admired the view for all of about, 3 minutes! Extremely blustery, just like on the telly.
Quickly scurrying inside, we found ourselves a nice spot in front of the open fire. (yes it was lit!)
There was notice board outside stating that James May (Top Gear) and Oz Clark ( the wine buff) would be at the pub that day. A little bit of ear wigging over the bar informed us that they were due about 4pm after filming something to do with sheep shearing! The mind boggles! Any way it was only 2.30ish when we'd finished our cokes, so I'm afraid James and Oz had to do without our company. We had bigger fish to fry... wonderful man was cooking chilli for tea!
Our first stop was a bite of lunch in the castle tea room, just to make sure we didn't run out of energy, there are lots of stairs to climb if you want to enjoy the views from the very top! I didn't take photos inside the castle as I've been so many times now, but watched my guests clicking away, batteries empty, memory cards full!
I couldn't resist the gardens though,
Well! Could you?
I do seem to take this shot every time though. I'm looking up into one of the staircase towers, only the stairs are no longer there. With a little bit of tweaking colour wise, don't you think it would make a cracking piece of patchwork!
The two youngest members of our family group had a whale of a time. There was a group of pirate reinactors ( grown men and women dressed up as pirates) in the castle for the day, and they had organised a pirate trail competition around the castle for the little ones. The prize for completing the trail was a pirate mask and cutlass! These went down a treat, even with our 10 and 13 year olds! Here they both are climbing a tree.
Time to cool down and take a rest, so off we all headed to the Falls at Aysgarth.
Paddling, rock pool gazing and a well earned sit down to enjoy the peace and tranquillity. Aaaah!
Between the lips and over the tongue.
Through a secret door.
Around the corner.
Follow the path.
Take care! Don't get stepped on.
Brush passed the flowers.
Along to the...
Graveyard.
Down through the woods.
Stop at the cottage,
Then down underground
Don't wake the giant!
or you'll be banished below
to meet someone else!
Quick! Back to the surface
and passed the wild boars
then run through another, quite scary door!
Step on the stepping stones,
mind how you go!
Wow! Here's a temple,
with murals galore!
