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The Probus walks have started up again – in a reduced and safe form. With the change in our national status from level 4 to level 3.5, up to six people are now allowed to gather together, suitably socially distanced.

A bit of discussion amongst the ‘elite’ walking group about what is possible, when we could do it, and how it would work – with particular emphasis on there being no pub lunch at the end of a walk! The Elite Rambling and Dining Group has sadly lost the D in our title, at least for a while!

So, yesterday an intrepid three of us did a walk, dubbed ‘the Phoenix walk’, starting from Conistone in Upper Wharfedale. It was a circular walk through spectacular scenery, and in glorious weather. We walked up ‘The Dib’, an intriguing steep limestone gorge that must have been a river bed in the distant past, and then along the high moor Dales Way at the top of the valley side, passing extensive limestone pavements, exotic limestone buttresses (have you ever seen the Conistone Pie – it’s not something you’d eat!), a Lime Kiln and old (iron age?) settlements.

Lunch, rather than being in a cosy pub was us sitting on limestone blocks, eating sandwiches and looking at the lush valley near Threshfield. The return half of the walk, just outside a large wood, took us on a contoured trail, alongside magnificent cliffs and on a switchback roller-coaster of a trail back to Conistone.

You had to be there to appreciate it! Bill usually does the descriptions of the views that we can’t see because of the murky conditions for many of our walks, but this time the blue sky and the big views were clear for us all to see. 5 or 6 miles of pure heaven!

Maybe our luck is changing!