With an invitation to a party, I put on my best party frock and zoomed up the M1 to about as far north as is decent for a Home Counties chap, to stay in a rather splendid hotel in Leyburn in the Yorkshire Dales. Martin Banfield was celebrating his completion of Another Pyrenean Adventure, his newly published book of his GR11 walk in the summer, with a dozen or so of his friends.
Leyburn is in Wharfedale, possibly the most beautiful of all the Yorkshire Dales. The following photos are from the walk on Saturday. Should you suddenly be seized by an urge to see a larger version of any of the pictures, you need only to click on them, and they will blow up to an exceedingly accommodating size.
The day started with a cloud inversion filling the dale, which was slowly burnt away to be replaced with gorgeous sunshine, followed by the mist returning late afternoon to add more interest to the photographs.
You will note that there are only rear views of the various participants; their identities will remain a mystery, rather like those of the Bilderberg Group. I suppose if you hunt around the blogosphere it is possible to fathom a few from the list of attendees. One chap, however, does deserve a special mention. I have followed his exploits on his blog over many years, yet had never met the gentleman. However, on this rather grand occasion I had the pleasure of sharing a room with Conrad, who writes Conrad Walks . He is an absolute gentleman and tremendous fun to boot. I thoroughly recommend you pop over to his place and discover Conrad's world of adventure.
On various other places in the dazzling world of social media that I'm sure you all frequent, I have captioned the crumbling edifice seen in the picture below variously as Bolton Abbey, Bolton Castle and Fylingdales. Apparently none is correct. Fortunately I wasn't map reading. The sheep don't care either way.
And now, rather like Nicholas Parsons, we approach the sunset hours; The landscape hues fade away, to be replaced by the blazing colours of the heavens.
A huge 'thank you' to Martin & Sue for the invitation and a sparkling round of applause to the party members who made the weekend so much fun.
Hi Alan. Likewise. It was a pleasure to meet you at last. I think we kept our room neighbours awake talking till 1.30am on the Friday night/Saturday morning. We covered a pretty wide range of subjects - all good stuff.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Conrad
Just as well you weren't map reading, Al - the last time I was up there Leyburn was in Wensleydale!
ReplyDeleteAh.
DeleteWhoops!
:-)
I wonder if our map readers knew this? it would explain everything!
*giggling uncontrollably*
Forgot to say, excellent pictures, very autumnal. Love the light at this time of year.
DeleteThis sunshine's overrated.
DeletePhotographs should include bogs, clouds of midges obscuring the horizon, some belting rain and roaring tigers...
Great weekend Al. We enjoyed the company very much.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Al.
DeleteIt was lovely to see you both again.
:-)
Sign that girl of yours up to the Challenge. You know she wants to...
If only life was that simple. I know there is no doubt she can do it. What with work, holidays and looking after her mum she can’t put 2-21/2 weeks off. We have thought about her doing the second week, say meet at Aviemore, that might happen.
DeleteBut as you know she has all the right atributes to be a great challenger.
Now here's a chap who did all the planning - You can read a proper account of the weekend by clicking
ReplyDeleteHERE
It also has a cast list! There'll be trouble...
:-)