We made it!
Five hours of driving through changing scenery, from the mountains of the Brecon Beacons to the flat land in Cheshire. Onward through the gentle rolling hills of Lancashire and up into the Pennines and the Yorkshire Dales.
A journey that was filled with much random conversation, laughter and tractors! Yes there were plenty of tractors of all colours and sizes; well it is potato harvesting season!
We joked we really ought to do a podcast of our butterfly minded conversations as there’s no way we’ll remember much of it ourselves. This is rather good news to us as we can do the whole conversation again tomorrow and it’ll still seem fresh.
On the way we stopped for a nice lunch at Stokesay Castle. We’re planning to stop there on our way back later in the week and we’ll get some photos then.
The next leg of our journey had us rushing as much as we could (tractors and slow drivers permitting) to get to a lovely cafe Liz knows at West Marton. Sadly, we didn’t make it in time, but it’s on the go to list for later in the week. Liz reports they do a fantastic bowl of chips. And nice cake.
We did get to a farm shop on the outskirts of Skipton called Keelham’s. We were disappointed that the caff had shut for the day but the downstairs restaurant was open.
A lovely bowl of thrice cooked chips was delivered for us to share, followed by coffee and walnut cake. Oh, and a gallon of Yorkshire tea! The chips were gorgeous, hot, crispy and freshly cooked. The cake was nice enough. The service was excellent.
The tea was very welcome indeed after a couple of hours on the road dodging tractors!
I’m now settled in at the Devonshire Arms in Cracoe, Liz has sorted her caravan out for her stay. Shortly we’re off to play dominoes after Liz has invited us along to the local gathering of domino regulars down t’pub.
I couldn’t have had a warmer welcome at the Devonshire Arms from Phil.
And an apology. We didn’t get any photos on our journey; not easy to take from a motoring Freelander! However some of the things we did see on our way included:
- buzzards
- a field with several red kites feasting behind the plough
- a heron coming into land that flew right in front of the car’s windscreen
- lovely old medieval ‘black and white’ buildings
- charming churches
- duckpond, complete with happily floating ducks
- stacks of freshly baked bread going round and round in tall windows of a commercial bakery
- a baby bunny nibbling grass
- brown spotted sheepies (the lamb was so cute)
- potatoes – loads and loads of potatoes in huge trailers behind enormous tractors!
We’ll let you know later how much we lose at dominoes tonight!
Curious Stops and Tea Shops 