Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

Day 5 - Janet's Foss and Malham Cove A shortish walk was on the agenda for Monday morning, prior to us all heading home. Nigel had already gone back to Huddersfield, so it was just 10 of us who drove over to Malham. There was a slight hiccup at the start of the route, which caused us to get temporarily stuck behind a busful of foreign students. We waited patiently behind them as, one by one, they went through a number of kissing gates, before we decided to turn on the afterburners and shoot past them as they delicately tried to avoid the puddles in their designer footwear. First stop was the Janet's Foss waterfall: The original plan had been to head from there to Gordale Scar, another (higher) waterfall, but we were a little late starting and decided - all bar Gordon and Stewart - to bypass this and head straight for the famous Malham Cove. The walk over gave us grand views of the multitude of dry stone walls: We arrived at the top of Malham Cove ...

Day 4 - Great Whernside Sunday's plan was to climb up Great Whernside and round back to Starbotton and then Kettlewell. It looked like being the toughest climb of the weekend - and so it turned out. The Dales are covered in what we would call dry stane dykes which have to be crossed over on stiles or through narrow gaps: Up we went, arriving at a Scout hostel and a small chapel which somebody said was the highest in England: There was a short, sharp climb from there and we all took a rest on the rocks above: By now, we were checking the altitude on our phone apps. How much further, daddy? We spied some rocks on what we thought was the top, but when we got there we found out it was another false summit. We ploughed on with occasional rest stops: Finally, the cairn at the summit: From there, it was along the top, down, round and finally down again to the Fox and Hounds in Starbotton for a well-earned pint before completing the final 2 miles...

Day 3 - Kettlewell - Buckden return It was Saturday and Ken gave us a bit of a breather with a walk along the valley floor, albeit with a short sharp upwards loop at the mid-point before and after lunch. We passed some interesting looking buildings along the way: The Dales Way basically followed the river: Eventually we reached the George, just before it opened at noon. Requests for coffees prior to this time were met with refusal, so we opted for Gordon's and Stewart's drams instead: After this we took a semi-circular route up, round and back down to lunch at the lovely White Lion Inn in Cray, where we had the best lunch of the weekend and definitely the best beer - Buckden Pike, brewed by Yorkshire Dales of Leyburn. After lunch we marched back and soon arrived at Buckden, where Ken's plan had been that we would all catch the bus back to Kettlewell, which was a little less than 4 miles away along the Dales Way we had already walked along. Ho...

Day 2 Kettlewell - Litton - Arncliffe - Kettlewell Ken's plan for today was for us to leave Upper Wharfdale and walk over the hill to Littondale. It was to be the first test of our legs, lungs and equipment. Several "photo opportunities" were required - even our leader seems to be drawing breath here - or was he just open-mouthed at the view?: It wasn't too tough really and soon we were on the plateau on the march to the trig point, where we gathered for our first team photo: The walk down the other side was pretty steep but we made it to the Queens Arms in Litton about lunchtime. It was a fairly brief stop as we had planned to walk along the riverside to the next village (Arncliffe) for another refreshment before tackling the hike back over the hill to Kettlewell. Wet feet were the order of the day as we got near the Falcon Inn, with underground springs flooding our path: The Falcon Inn was the original Woolpack, as seen in the TV series Emmerdal...

It was our 8th annual walking weekend away and we had our largest ever turnout of 11, including 3 debutants - John Davies, Nigel Meany and Jeb Tyrie. That takes the total number of participants to date up to 13 - Andy Marshall and Jack Simpson being the other two who have attended previously. Our leader, Ken Black, has, of course, made an appearance at each one, albeit a very brief one at the first event back in 2010 when we tackled the northern section of the West Highland Way. After 4 consecutive years of travelling in the month of May, we reverted to September again this year for our 3rd trip over the border - this time to the Yorkshire Dales. Day 1 - Hawes to Hardraw We arranged to meet up in the car park at Hawes at lunchtime, stopping there for a brief coffee in what was a combined bike and coffee shop: We got diverted a little on the fairly short walk to Hardraw as the field we were traversing was flooded, but it didn't take us long to reach the ...

We promised ourselves at the start of the year that we would try and complete at least one "training walk" per month this year and on the first day of the 9th month, we completed our 9th walk of 2017. The August walk, when I was away, went unreported, but Messrs Sharp, Williamson and Kilgour did the Balmoral Cairns walk on Friday 11th August. No official stats available, but the https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk web site says it is a 9.75 kms walk with 348 m of elevation. No photos either, but Ian did supply this selfie: It was a glorious day in Upper Deeside again on Friday for Walk No. 9 and there was some added frisson with the fact that it was the eve of the Braemar Highland Games and the place was buzzing. Walking up Chapel Brae at the start of the walk, we spotted the Royal Navy tug of war teams practising: We passed by a little pond as we strolled further up Chapel Brae towards the official start of the walk: The first decision point came soon after...