A little bit of everything - a walk from Reeth.

Yesterday's walk proved a little difficult for me.  But today we had different type of walk planned, not so much up, and not so much distance.  Definitely something I should be able to cope with, and we were starting a lot closer to home, in the lovely little village of Reeth.

We started from the Green, with blue blue sky and warm sun overhead.  Peter had already read from the map that the first part of the walk would be a gentle climb up through fields and stiles along the side of Swaledale.

Beautiful views: sheep and lambs, old stone walls and barns, crows and gulls overhead and the bare branches of the trees striking against the blue of the sky.  I even watched a bird of prey, which I think was a buzzard, through my binoculars for a few brief seconds.

The yellow flower is Lesser Celandine.  The flower only opens in sunshine, and we saw loads today.

Carrying on gently upward, we left the grazing sheep and the green grass and found ourselves in heather moorland, full of noisy grouse. They were more obvious than usual, or at least the males were.  We worked out that they were looking out for the females, probably strutting their stuff and advertising their little patch of heather suitable for nesting, in grouse language.

We walked on over Reeth Low Moor, bypassing Calver Hill, although it looked tempting, over the heather, and over bog,  towards West Raw Croft Farm, watching the lapwings do acrobatics over the fields just in front of us.

We reached Arkle Beck, which was the perfect spot for lunch.  Just lovely.

We crossed the little footbridge and then made our way along Arkle Beck back towards Reeth, and the scene changed again.   With Fremington Edge on our right and the river on our left, there were trees and scree, hawthorn and mud, woodland birds trilling and tweeting, and of course rabbits, all over the dune like rises and falls of the valley.  This is lower Arkengarthdale and typical of the Dales to be honest. But still wonderful and different and I never get tired of  walking in these hills and valleys.  Especially not in weather as good as we were having today.

Further downriver the scene changed again.  A plantation broke into the typical Dales setting,   Very pretty and very different.

Then we were back to Dales scenery that we love.  We came to White House, now derelict, but full of character, before walking the final leg alongside the river to Reeth.
A truly lovely walk of only six miles, but with a little bit of everything thrown in, it felt like longer.  We took ages over it because of all the times we just stopped to look, enjoy and admire, as well as take photographs.

And the end of a perfect day has to be being able to have a drink in one of the pubs in Reeth.  We chose The Buck Inn, where we were able to sit in the sun and look out at the glorious view.  Oh and by the way, my new boots were so perfect, I didn't even notice I had them on.  They did get well and truly christened walking along the riverside though.  Properly muddied and drenched.

5.9 miles, 943ft ascent.



This yrs total 18.2 miles.  3582 ft ascent