Jill and I set off early from the Old Boar’s Head, where the clientele playing the ingenious Friday night Snakes and Ladder Trivia Quiz, more than made up for the lack of wifi, with their welcoming friendliness.

Friendly Boar’s Head

We walked along the Pennine Bridleway, up the hill and through lush farmland to the bustling market town of Settle. With the morning mist hanging in the valleys the views were sublime. The distinctive shape of Pendle Hill was still just about visible on the horizon. The early morning light gave everything, including the black and creamy coloured Fresians, a golden halo.

Leaving Long Preston

Fresians enjoying the sun

Clear, clear views into the distance

Mitchell Lane took us on a steep descent into Settle .. have I mentioned recently how much I love my poles? I’m sure I must have visited Settle in my childhood as the market place looked familiar this morning. It’s dominated by the town hall and The Shambles, an historic three storey building with two floors of shops and houses above. My parents were good walkers and the Yorkshire Dales was a favourite area of theirs. There were flowers everywhere and the whole town felt well-cared for and comfortable, with interesting shops and little galleries.

Settle window-box

Pansies opening up to the sun

Spurning a whole clutch of promising looking cafes, I guided Jill to ‘Ye Olde Naked Man Cafe’ for a very early lunch. Of course, I’d have preferred the ‘Young, Hip and Six-Packed Man Cafe’, but we just couldn’t find it. The naked man of Settle surveys the market place from the first floor of the establishment. He holds a strategically placed plaque, bearing the date 1663. Legend has it that he was given the plaque to preserve his modesty when Queen Victoria came to visit the town. At that stage he would have presided over a pub, rather than a cafe. In Langcliffe, the village close by, he has a naked woman partner, high in the gable of one of the houses in the village. Despite the seeming authenticity of the cafe, we were not impressed by their Yorkshire puddings which we had for lunch with Cumberland sausages and apple sauce. Nowhere near as light, crispy and fluffy as our mothers’.

Good place for cakes .. but not Yorkshire puds

Settle is the starting point for the rather splendid Settle to Carlisle Railway, which despatches steam trains through the Dales. I’d love for us to have hopped on a choo choo, as our sweet little boy used to call them, but there were a few miles yet to cover. As we left the town we spied a signpost to the delightfully named village of Giggleswick, where I remember taking a holiday with my mum and sister in the 70s. The village has had more than its fair share of famous people. The list was probably topped by Henry Maudsley, the eminent Victorian psychiatrist who donated £30k to facilitate the building of the Maudsley Hospital. A small fortune in those days. He had some pretty wacky theories. Take his views on alcoholism: he argued that it was the ‘most frequent trigger of inherited degeneracy, and that drunkenness in one generation would lead to frenzied need for drink in the second, hypochondria in the third, and idiocy in the fourth’.  Later in life he agreed that this might have been a tad unrealistic. It probably accounts for him being tagged ‘consistently inconsistent’.

The path continued with the compass pointing consistently north, to my delight. The weather could not have been more perfect .. slightly cooler than yesterday with the gentlest of breezes. We walked high up to Barrel Sykes to the village of Langcliffe and although we failed to see the unclad woman, we were compensated with many magnificent far-reaching views .. 

Looking back at the market town

High up above Settle .. please help me out with identifying what the landmark is on the horizon

Criss-crossing dry stone walls seen through the tracery of the trees

Everywhere there were lambs reclining on the grass, noses in the air gently sniffing the zephyrs while snoozing in the sun. It was positively bucolic.

Soporific lambs

Behaving like sheep we took a moment to enjoy the views, while resting our haunches. And then it was on to Stainforth, one of the loveliest of villages in the Yorkshire Dales. There were some pretty challenging stiles along the way. I was thrilled to be able to introduce Jill to some typical Yorkshire exuberance when we met a retired National Parks ranger at one of them. She enthusiastically told him about my walk.  ‘Aye, ‘appen’, he replied, with the emotion of a teaspoon.

Stiles bigger than the climber

Approaching Stainforth

Having been up high on the fells, we then spent a few miles following the lazy path of the River Ribble. Jill demonstrated her Aussie mettle by swimming! I demonstrated my English aversion to swimming by drinking my tea. The river did look pretty and at Stainforth Bridge there were many campers and caravaners from the adjacent camp-ground, enjoying all it had to offer. I happened to be standing next to the waterfall when one chap in a wetsuit suddenly ran out of the bushes and bombed, John Smith beer style, into the deep pool far below. Top bombing!

Mid jump

Our pleasant river-side walk ended at Horton in Ribblesdale, where we were staying at The Golden Lion, a pub which knows it has a captive audience .. if the absurd room prices are anything to go by. If you’re as mad as a cut snake and decide to take the Three Peaks Challenge, you’ll start the lunacy at Pen-y-Ghent cafe in Horton in Ribblesdale. The run is an endurance challenge of 26 miles (41.8 km), including 5,000 feet (1,524 m) of ascent and descent of the mountains of Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough, all to be completed in under 12 hours. It attracts thousands of runners each year. Last year’s female winner made it in 3 hours and 20 minutes.

As we walked into Horton from the River Ribble at around 5pm, we kept bumping into stumbling groups of people, of all ages, many wearing no shoes, many limping. Most sported a fuchsia sunburn, most looked shattered yet triumphant and by the time we reached The Golden Lion, most had a pint of Old Peculiar or Theakstons in their hands. Had we been here in Horton at 7 this morning we would have seen the gathering of over a thousand people, all ready to turn their feet to walking the Three Peaks for a variety of charities. It seems that many of them did it with little or no training beforehand! But this lack of preparation bore no relation to how happy everyone looked. Hope the happiness brims over into Sunday!

When Jill wrote to me a couple of week’s ago from Sydney asking if there was anything I needed, I wrote back saying simply, ‘Bring Spring’. She certainly delivered today.

Black Dog Tails
This is Arrow, guide-dog to the Human Rights Commissioner for Australia, Graeme Innes.