On Ilkley Moor baht 'at

12/9/2017

While a hat would have been a good idea, as the sun was determined to shine, the competing wind would have sent it into Northumberland.
The ear worm tune was apparently from a hymn, and adapted and  revived by Victorian school children. Probably like many a mad hiker before me, I bellowed the ditty into the heather clad wind blasted moors,  two bemused sheep and one long suffering husband the only audience.

The pleasures of slow travel in England- a bus from our mooring in Skipton to Ilkley, us perched in the front seats of the double decker. No car to manage or navigation to challenge marital harmony. Then an amble round the town, which borders the River Wharfe. We recalled passing the mouth of the Wharfe, where it lazily winds to a junction with the Ouse, below York. Nothing lazy about the Wharfe in Ilkley, as the folds of the Pennines press it east.

After a reviving coffee at the institution called Bettys,  we picked up a map and decided a ramble up the moors, would be a Good Idea. There was a picnic in the backpack, raincoats to the ready.
The ramble became a scramble, as the track at times resembled  a watercourse, with recent rains coursing down the crags, into the old quarries, amd eventually via the Wharfe and Ouse, into the North Sea.

An exhilerating walk, along the roof of the moor,  wending downwards to a surprising 18th C public spa bath, isolated in the heather.  The good people of Ilkley could ride there,  with a stone mounting block for the ladies. A cafe called White Wells occupies part of the building, but was fortunately closed- if we had lingered there the blustering rain would have caught us, still clambering, and drenched.

A final cuppa in town, then the X84 back to Skipton, a towpath walk to Santiago, and a welcome GnT.