We’re down first again this morning and once more take the best seat in the room by the window. Coffee, OJ and toast arrive soon and then while we’re waiting for the mains two other guys arrive. These are more sociable than yesterday’s loner with his sausage and BP horror; and we have something to talk about because they’re on bikes too. They’re Londoners, on a one way trip home from Berwick-upon-Tweed, the coast town we started our first tour in the UK from neary twenty years ago.
We have a good chat about bikes, the weather (it looks like showers this morning followed by partial clearing) and the sorry state of the world (and it really does feel bleak this morning, to say the least - reviews of last night’s nightmarish Biden-Trump debate greeted our day) until the mains arrive. Not long after four others trickle in and take the long table. They’re bikers also, on a three day coast to coast ride along the Way of the Roses. It’s a lot of bikers to share the room with but we’re not surprised because we’d seen the other dining hall crammed with all our bikes when we returned from dinner last night.
They’re riding the Way of the Roses Coast to Coast Cycle Route: Morecambe to Bridlington in 170 miles. Like most folks they’re taking it in 3 days and riding west to east to have the best chances with a wind. A short leg today for them: 37 miles to York.
Showers continue off and on throughout the morning so we change our dinner reservation at the Crown to a lunch one instead; and after digestion occurs we’re both off in midafternoon for a hike and a bike. Rachael’s walk is one we worked out together, coming up with a route that’s primarily on the Nidderdale Way so hopefully she’ll have a better hiking experience. And mine is an easy ride up north along the Nidd the whole way to the end of the pavement at the Scar House Dam.
High street is only a car and a half wide and always busy. Rachael’s making her dash across when a gap finally opens up.
We both leave at the same time. I cross busy High Street to get to the left side of the road and wait while Rachael finally gets her gap in the traffic and crosses over herself. And then we check her map to get her oriented and get reminded that she’s headed north to start off herself, which means she’s on the wrong side of the street. So she watches for another gap, crosses again, and soon disappears into an alley. I won’t see her until we both return about four hours later.
It’s too bad I didn’t follow her just a ways though because she’s only a block into her walk when an attractive but unfamiliar young woman steps up to introduce herself. It’s Maya, a relative of our friends Eva and Al Walters, over in the UK to avoid the smoke from the BC wildfires that seem like they’re the plague of the province again this year. She recognizes Rachael because remarkably enough she knows her from the blog.
What an extraordinary coincidence, in tiny remote Pateley Bridge of all places; and their timing wouldn’t have needed to be off by more than a minute or two to have missed each other. So that makes three coincidences related to the Walters since we arrived in the UK. We stayed in the same B&B in Plymouth that they had some years ago, and then again at the one in Tiverton. It’s starting to feel like we have a star-crossed connection with them.
Rachael’s hike is excellent, and she returns with this robust slide show to prove it. She found the walking route to be fine the whole way, though just a bit more than she’d planned on. It’s getting late in the day when she comes to the 25% climb up to Nought Moor so she does the prudent, conservative thing for a change, shortens her walk by a challenging two miles, and walks home from Glasshouses along the Nidd.
Nobody called out my name to stop for a chat on my bike up the Nidd. Thinking back, I’m not sure I shared words with another person until I returned to our room four hours later. Which was fine. It was an outstanding outstanding - beautiful, peaceful, and it even included a new bird! Perfect therapy to take your mind off what feels like the end of the world as we know it and you’re not sure you’ll want to go home again.
We’re on the west side of the Nidd now, loooking east. That’s the ridge that rises up behind town, with the moors, curlews and lapwings up on top. Sheep too, but you don’t have to go all the way up there to see sheep. They’re pretty much everywhere you look.
Patrick O'HaraReal pretty country. Unfortunately, your country ain't too 'pretty' right now! I watched the whole debate. Unsettling. Reply to this comment 2 months ago
The Yorke Arms, Ramsgill. Formerly a hotel and restaurant, it reinvented itself as a bookable events venue a few years ago. Sad. It looks like Covid might have done it in.
On the climb from Ramsgill up to Scar Face Reservoir, following the Nidd all the way up. A gentle, relaxed climb the whole way, gaining 500 feet in five miles. A good choice on a day when I’m ready for a break.
#260: Red-legged partridge. A frustrating bird, he kept walking quickly down the road away from me keeping his distance, staying in the shadows and looking straight ahead. This shot when he quickly looked around was the best I could get.
The dam was built with over a million tonnes of masonry, brought down here from by a quarry above by a temporary railroad. On the opposite bank are remains of a village of 1,250 that developed here to build the dam over a period of fifteen years.
The hill just north of the dam is Little Whernside, in the Yorkshire Dales at the boundary of the national park and Nidderdale. It’s a protected area, under restoration by the Yorkshire Peat Partnership.
Scott AndersonTo Patrick O'HaraYes, you’re right. I found a different article that describes where it came from better than the Wikipedia article does. The rail line that brought it to a dam site was apparently a short inclined line running up and down that slope. Good observation! Reply to this comment 2 months ago
We’ve seen many of these postings before but I’ve not understood what they referenced before. It means the cemetery includes one or more graves of war dead from the two world wars that’s listed on the searchable Commonwealth War Graves website (www.cwgc.org).
Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesUnspecified on the website anyway. There’s only one soldier listed here, a private who died in WWI. No details on where he died or if his remains are here. The memorial was placed by his parents, who lived in nearby Ripon. Reply to this comment 2 months ago
Today's ride: 23 miles (37 km) Total: 2,434 miles (3,917 km)
Rate this entry's writing
Heart
10
Comment on this entry
Comment
1
Eva WaltersYes it was certainly a surprise to us that you and Maya met in Pateley Bridge. But it was probably more of a coincidence even than you think because we had no idea at that time that you were there, and we had no idea that Maya was there. We thought she might be in Harrogate.
So far this season we've been lucky in the southeast of BC to not have any wildfire smoke or major fires nearby. It's always in the back of your mind because the weather could get hot and windy at any time now, and a lot of the province is very dry. Reply to this comment 2 months ago
