Skip to main content

Yorkshire highlights


Having good friends in Yorkshire who are both proud of the area in which they live and generous with their time gifted us with fantastic local insights including some hidden natural wonders.

Some of the natural highlights included:


Plumpton Rocks  

 Plumpton Rocks is a cluster of gritstone (much like Sydney Sandstone) boulders that in the 1750’s were transformed into a celebrated landscape garden with a man made lake. Now the garden has largely been allowed to return to its natural state and is a mixture of forest, natural rock formations and moss covered crumbling architecture.
We visited on a day when it was technically closed so we had the rocks all to ourselves and took our time to wander around the lake and enjoy the scenery.

Brimham Rocks
Brimham Rocks is on one of the highest hills of the Yorkshire moors and provides views almost to the east coast, the lakes district and beyond Sheffield. Many millions of years of erosion and weathering has created rock formations of stacked boulders.


Malham Cove
Malham Cove is a curved 70m high limestone escarpment near the village of Malham, North Yorkshire. It was formed by a waterfall carrying meltwater from glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age more than 12,000 years ago.  The top of the Cove limestone has formed a natural pavement criss-crossed with little crevices filled with plant life. The escarpment is a popular venue for rock climbers. The overhang of the cliff face provides some real challengers even for experienced climbers.  
Access to the Cove is through farm land on a pedestrian right of way but beware of the cows.  As we neared the gate our progress was blocked by cows who nudged us off the path. We took evasive action scrambling over the dry stone wall to the safety of the road.     


 Gordale Scar
Gordale Scar is a deep gorge and waterfall approximately 1.5km from Malham Cove.  Torrents of glacial meltwater that flowed over it cut down through faults in the rock.  Successive ice ages have carved it deeper and deeper over thousands of years. Water still flows down the Scar and locals rock hop and scramble up the waterfall to the top. We had planned to do this but heavy rains overnight meant the flow of water was too great and many of the rocks were covered by a torrent of water. Our planned walk was altered and we headed for the nearby Malham Inn for a pint just as the rain started.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Highland Games

Arriving in Scotland we saw Highland Games advertised in almost every town that we visited. The problem for us was the events were either the week before or in 4 days time; never at a time convenient for us. Our luck changed on the Scottish Borders town of Peebles; all the stars aligned.  Highland Games are when local communities get together and celebrate Scottish culture. All Highland games include: a pipe band competition, highland dancing, and traditional heavy events including caber tossing, hammer throwing, and the crowd favourite of haggis hurling.  Pipe bands and dancing are open to all ages and cover a range of abilities Shot putt is the same as the Olympic event but competitors are free to use whatever technique works for them. Some use a standing throw, others use a run up or spinning preparation.   Hammer throwing, unlike its Olympic equivalent the hammer has a wooden handle and the athlete does not spin in a circle before throwing it. ...
2 comments
Read more

Prague

Parking our van a few kilometres out of the city centre and catching public transport for a few days provided us with more opportunity to take in Prague and its cultural sights. First we headed to the old town Square, where we found a free festival that included music, outdoor entertainment and food stalls. We enjoyed beers in the sun, together with Bratwurst on rye while taking in the music and people watching.  Prague has a vibrant and an edgy arts scene and the band we saw was no exception. They were dressed as members of the delinquent gang in Stanley Kubricks 1971 movie A Clock Work Orange. By chance we had arrived in Prague on the first Saturday of the month, a day when all of Prague's public museums open their doors for free from 7pm onwards. We loved the Fall of the Iron Curtain photo exhibition at the Castle Summer Palace (refer to other blog, entitled Fall of the Iron Curtain). That night we had a meal at U Flecku. Since 1499 U Flecku has ser...
2 comments
Read more

Rome

1 comment
Read more