In Pateley Bridge: Brimham Rocks

June 27, 2024

It’s quiet in the breakfast space at the B&B this morning, and for awhile I’m wondering if we’re the only guests when a single young man comes down, takes a seat at a table without looking up (customs are so different in England - there’s none of the automatic greetings you get from other diners in the Mediterranean countries) and sits down facing away from us. When our host comes to take his order from the printed menu he asks if a custom order is possible: he’d like a sausage and blood pudding sandwich. It’s a thought that comes to me off and on throughout the day, a delicacy that wouldn’t have occurred to me.

Rachael and I plan a day similar to the one up to the reservoir back in Llanidloe last week and the one to the abbey near Shrewsbury, where she’ll walk and I’ll bike to the same primary destination, see it in different ways, and possibly meet up along the way. Today the plan is to stitch together routes to nearby Brimham Rocks, an unusual rock formation that’s also a National Trust site; and after that we’ll drop back to and cross the mighty Nidd before climbing steeply up to Nought Moor, a place I’d nought have thought to visit if Rachael hadn’t seen photos of it in a travel pamphlet left in the room for us.

Rachael enjoys a fine walk at first, especially enjoying the same inspiring views from Panorama Road that I’ll enjoy later from the highway paralleling it. Unfortunately the route I’ve mapped out for her craps out when she comes to a gated private road less than a half mile from the rocks. This is the second time this has happened now where a road or track RideWithGPS lets us map a route along proves to be impassable and it will happen to me up in the moors today also, so we’re going to have to sharpen up our game on this. Sorry again, Rachael!

So she more or less heads back to the room the way she came, gets her eight miles in, and will round up to twelve with a walk along the river to Glasshouses later in the day.

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My planned route is longer than Rachael’s of course since I’ve got wheels. It starts with a ride up to the moor topping the hill east of town, the one you’d get to if you took the Old Church Road challenge with its 26% climb. I’m not doing that, and have found a longer route that meters out the elevation gain pain so that it keeps to a more age-appropriate gradient.

The ride starts out steadily climbing on the B6265, paralleling the start of Rachael’s walk just above me on the Panorama Walk. This is an area I thought we might meet up, and I’d watch for her position on the Garmin if I could see her, but I can’t. Later I’ll find out it’s because my phone has powered down - an easy technical fix that I should be able to figure out more timely next time.

The B6265 carries some traffic but is fine, and gives me increasingly good views across the Nidd as I gain elevation.

The view west across the Nidd. That’s Nought Moor at the high point on the far side, a spot we both plan to see close up later in the day.

I stay on the B6265 and climb steadily for the first two miles before cresting out and then dropping to Fellbeck, where I turn north on an empty single track asphalt line so quiet and inconsequential it doesn’t even merit a name on the map. It’s a steady but relaxed ascent for the two miles and I’m biking alongside unbroken stone walls with green pastures on either side when I see a whitish flash of a bird to the side that quickly drops behind the wall on the left. I’ve got my suspicions about what I’ve briefly sighted so I lay down the bike in the grass (although it would have been perfectly fine in the middle of the road), and carefully step across the narrow drainage ditch to reach the wall and stealthily peek across it to the other side.

The bird’s nowhere to be seen though.A disappointment, so the effort’s wasted - and it is an effort, because with my knee situation it isn’t easy crossing irregular spans like this. As soon as I turn back and look up though I see the bird has indeed moved on - across to the other side of the lane now where he’s calmly perched atop the opposite stone wall just waiting for me to notice him and take my shots. He gives me nearly a full minute before he gives the call that his name comes from and flies off.

#257: Eurasian curlew, another lifer for me. He gave me time to fire off a half dozen shots before moving on, but I liked this one best where his long curved bill outlines his back.

I’m thrilled by this of course - a curlew is the top of the list of birds I hoped to see up here, and I’m barely into the day’s ride. There are two others I’m particularly watching out for - an oystercatcher and a lapwing - and remarkably enough I’ve only gone a few hundred yards when I hear the strong call of an oystercatcher and see a couple of them on the pavement up ahead. It turns out they’re quite common up here and I’ll see at least a dozen more before the day is done.

A fun bird fact, after getting a good look at several oystercatchers: they’re just a wee bit clumsy. Several times a bird would slip and lose its footing walking along the top of the stone wall, with one of its feet slipping into a gap. Invariably the bird will spread its wings and flutter until regaining its footing. It briefly exposes the dramatic white wing stripes, so I’ll have to see if I can time a shot to catch this look one of these times.

So this is turning into a wonderful road. I continue on it as it steadily climbs an arrow-straight line for the next two miles, admiring classic Yorkshire Dales scenery along the way when there’s another birding surprise - a pair of somewhat larger birds, suggesting kestrels except they’ve got white rumps and the flight pattern isn’t quite right. I take the best shots I can get until I see one descend into the tall grass a few hundred yards off and get a clear enough look to recognize the telltale crest of a lapwing. Three for three!

In Yorkshire, on an excellent day with an interesting partly cloudy sky. What are there - maybe a hundred jackdaws in this shot?

Sheep are great of course but it’s nice to get some variety in the livestock.

#259: Northern lapwing, my second lifer of the day. And my first lapwing crossing sign, which is pretty special too.

Toward the end of this road I come to the end of the stone-walled pastures and come to finally the wide open, unfenced moor. The road ends at a T-junction with Old Church Road, the one that climbs so steeply up from town. I could turn left and clutch the brakes down that 26% cliff but I turn east instead and bike along the edge of the moor.

Approaching the end of the road. It joins Old Church Road right about at the horizon.

Getting high on the Nidderdale National Landscape. The heather is just starting to bloom out.

I’m biking along this wonderful road taking time and stopping frequently when I’m startled by a pair of bikers breezing along behind me. They’ve just disappeared to the east when another comes, and then two more. Finally there’s yet another pair, and then a white van passes with a few bikes on its roof. So a commercial tour group then.

I’ll catch up with the Backroads van parked on the shoulder a half mile later, the bikers busy loading up their bikes - their work is done for the morning perhaps, and they’re ready for lunch. I wonder if they all climbed up from Pateley Bridge then? Later I’ll read up on their tour to see where else they’re going, but they’re nearly at the end of it. It’s a short tour that begins in Edinburgh and ends in nearby Masham - five whole days of catered cycling in northern Britain, for only $6,000!

They and we are in luck today - it’s a splendid day to be up here. Imagine spending $6k for a five day ride and having it rain the whole time!

Soon I come to the turnoff to an unpaved road that extends two miles to a dead end at the high point of the moor. My plan had been to bike to its end and back, but it’s gated and marked private so that’s out. My ride plan had been to double back from about here, backtrack to the B6825, and then make my way to the Brimham Rocks. This is such a fine road though and I’ve unexpectedly got some extra time that I decide to improvise and stay up here longer. I study the map, see that there’s another minor road further east that will cut across and join up with B6825 on the eastern side of the rocks. It must be about the same net distance as I’d been planning, so I go with that. The next maybe five miles are quietly perfect as I gradually drop to Grantley, cross the River Skell, and then climb to Risplith where I finally join the B road and start climbing west toward Brimham Rocks.

It’s good to be warned, but I’m watching out anyway.

I’m happy to say that I’ve not grown too blasé to stop for another curlew if I come to one.

On another nameless lane, dropping toward the River Skell and watching the sky fill in to the south.

Brimham Rocks is an interesting feature alright, well worth getting to. I take a few but not a surfeit of shots since I assume Rachael’s filled up a catalog of her own but of course that didn’t happen. It’s a shame that there’s no good walking route to reach it from town without a considerable distance on the highway, unless we missed something.

Here’s how the National Trust describes this unusual setting:

The natural spectacle of Brimham Rocks, with its giant rock formations, was created by an immense river 100 million years before the first dinosaurs walked the earth, and a visit to this amazing landscape is truly a journey into pre-history.

The rocks, sculpted by 320 million years of movement of entire continents as well as hundreds of thousands of years of ice, rain and wind, have taken on weird and wonderful shapes and with a little imagination, they resemble familiar creatures. Visitors are free to explore the site, spotting the Dancing Bear, the Gorilla, the Eagle and the Turtle, whilst the more nimble can crawl through the Smartie Tube and balance on the Rocking Stones.

Some of the most iconic rock formations can be viewed only 10 minutes’ walk from the car park, and it takes around four hours to explore all of this fascinating site, with its enduring landscape and carefully managed environment.

Brimham Rocks and its heather moorland are both Sites of Special Scientific Interest and are a magnet for geologists, naturalists, climbers and walkers, as well as families who love the freedom to explore this amazing place.

By the time I’m done at the rocks I’m starting to distrust the weather. It looks like it could start raining before long so I decide to cut the ride short and just head for home. Misgivings about making that steep climb up to Nought Moor has nothing to do with it, though it is true that I’m feeling the need for a day off. So neither one of us ends up making it up there and all of that route planning went for nought.

Looking across at Nought Moor. At this point I’m concerned for Rachael, still thinking she’s probably hiking up there and risking getting drenched again.

I liked these bluish cows, their colors feeling compatible with the gloomy sky.

Here’s a surprise. This is the road I was planning on us riding the other direction when we leave here. I’ll need to study the map some more.

Home! That woman is striding past our front door. Interesting lettering on the pharmac next door to it.

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Today's ride: 21 miles (34 km)
Total: 2,411 miles (3,880 km)

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