Another month – another couple of walks.

An excellent walk in the Timble area led by Bill. With Bill you know that any walk is likely to have a bit of Roman road in it. Usually there’s no sign of the Roman road, except on the same OS maps that identify paths with green dots where a path is presumed to exist but there is no physical sign of it.

It’s all part of the fun of walking/exploring, however many reconnoitres you do in advance. This walk was exceptional in that at no point did I feel lost! Admittedly I had taken part in recces of this walk, but Bill always introduces new variants (he’s very up to date in his terminology!), possibly employing a complete switch of direction, to confuse anyone not paying attention.

The weather was wonderful, the terrain we covered was wonderfully diverse, even including the crossing of a stream on wobbly stones (always a favourite of the group). Highlights included the discovery of a dead ewe (with sad lamb by her side), the reporting of this to the local farmer and meeting someone on our walk who by his manners ‘owned’ the land we were walking on, and who could out-talk Lothar (that’s a first!)

The Timble Inn provided an excellent lunch too. Whole experience rated 9/10 (I have to reserve the tenth point for an out of this world experience).

Our second walk was from Linton, and was a gentle ramble through beautiful countryside. At this point I have to declare that I led this walk, having reccied it with my daughter a few days earlier. She declared it to be an excellent walk, probably because it wasn’t too long and we completed the circle in good time (enough time to get an icecream in Grassington.) OK, to be completely honest we did take the wrong path at one point and then had to walk along a busy (Sunday) road for a few hundred metres, instead of going across beautiful fields.

On the day, however, I had a cunning plan. I found the ‘missing’ path on the aerial map of OS.com What could go wrong.

Very little in fact, I just came out on the busy road a hundred metres beyond the correct position (so a shorter walk back along that road..) A definite improvement.

The walk itself was superb. Nature turned up in force – glorious sunshine, fields full of buttercups , and assorted other wild flowers that could be seen from right over the valley (what is the collective term for buttercups I wonder? a churn?)

There was little time pressure, so we walked at a gentle pace. We took the many stiles (particularly the giant vertical ‘A ‘ framed wooden stile/ladder) with few insults uttered to the walk leader.

The lunch at The Fountaine Inn was superb, as usual, and the pub was not crammed with people (good for us, less so for the pub owners).

I have to give the whole experience of this walk a 10/10 mark – for that ‘je ne sais quoi’ that only a walk leader can discern!