I’m updating a guidebook – the Bradt Slow Travel Guide to the Yorkshire Dales. The astute will realise this is something to do with travelling through the Yorkshire Dales, slowly. Which is perfect for cycling, perfect for me. So between now and Christmas I’ll be doing what I’d be doing anyway, except tax-deductibly.
This week I was in Craven. Specifically, in and around Malham, famous from its use as a movie backdrop. It’s featured in, for instance, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, whoever he is, and the Netflix series The Witcher, whatever that is. (Netflix, I mean.)
Perhaps too famous. Some news reports suggest that fans pay homage to these films by driving to Malham, parking badly, dropping some litter, taking a selfie and driving home.
This is, of course, almost the direct opposite of the spirit of Slow Travel, which is what I’m doing. I came on a bike from the train station, stayed two nights, cycled a leisurely circuit, ate and drank local food and beer, chatted plenty, and had a nice surprise at a farm, which you’ll find out about later.
Yesterday I took the train to Settle and spent a drizzly hour or two checking up on cafes, one of which is in the welcoming 3Peaks Cycle Shop in the Market Place. I also enjoyed some of the flowerpot-based sculptures installed around the town for its annual Flowerpot Festival.
There was a Postman Pat outside the post office, a suffragette with a placard demanding ‘Deeds not words’, various animals including a monkey and elephant, but also – my favourite – a Dalek. Which reminds me: I’m trying to be conscious of level access, wheelchair users etc, in my researches.
From Settle I took the steep climb eastwards up Albert Hill that’s notorious with cyclists doing the Way of the Roses. The moortop gave grand views of the town back behind me, or at least would have done if it hadn’t been throwing it down.
I’m staying at the Youth Hostel in Malham, one of the few YHA places now that offer dorm beds, and it was only £12 a night thanks to a summer offer. This morning before my ride I took the brief walk to Malham Cove, the grand natural amphitheatre and limestone pavement celebrated in that Glenn Campbell song. (Or was that Rhinestone Cowboy?)
I didn’t see any Harry Potter fans discarding litter or Netflix groupies irresponsibly parking. In fact I saw nobody at all. I had the entire geological show to myself early this morning. It was rather special.
With my morning walk walked, it was time to go cycling. I rode an anticlockwise loop: Malham – Gargrave – Skipton – Bolton Abbey – Appletreewick – Burnsall – Grassington – Malham. All the roads were delightful and scenic, with gently sided green valleys, handsome stone villages, friendly pubs and cosy cafes.
Gargrave to Skipton is now cyclable along the canal thanks to the recently resurfaced towpath of good gravel. I particularly enjoyed visiting Skipton Castle – a remarkably complete medieval showpiece – and was pleased to see that Skipton Town Hall has a new, accessible, museum with some historic bikes on display: a velocipede and penny-farthing, both even older than my bike.
The back lane from Embsay to Bolton Abbey is a gem; I hadn’t ridden it before. I had the surprising discovery en route of a 1950s-style ‘American’ eatery in the middle of this gentle, sheepy Dales scenery: Billy Bob’s Diner, thronging with families this sunny school-holiday morning.
Bolton Abbey was, as ever, a pleasure to cycle through. The ruined priory is one of the grandest free things you can see in Britain, magnificent by the riverside where families lazed on the sandy shores. And I thought river beaches were only a continental thing.
I think though that most of the kids were more interested in the ice cream van than the intact parish church on the end of the priory, a remarkable survivor of the Dissolution (aka ‘Brexit 1547’).
However you pronounce ‘Appletreewick’, somebody will say you’re wrong*. The village boasts two excellent pubs, one with a 16th-century gaslit interior and a wonderful medieval cruck barn that looks as good as the day it was built. That’s because it was built in 2006. My bike is actually older.
Burnsall has a fine bridge across the Wharfe and a picnickable green, and a pub – the Red Lion – that has a ghost. We know this, the bar staff told me, because it trips people up as they tackle the stairs at the end of an evening.
This was all lovely riding, on scenic upsy downsy lanes with calendar-style views all around. Which is appropriate: the village of Rylstone, just across the way, was where the original Calendar Girls were, local women who found fame and inspired a film by taking their clothes off.
After a final sweep of Grassington, stopping off at Linton Falls and Linton’s idyllicly situated pub-on-the-green-by-the-beck, I tackled the track back over the thrilling moortop to Malham.
At the top it started chucking it down with rain. I dashed into a farm building for shelter. The farmer appeared, and I thought he was going to tell me off. Instead he brought me a cup of tea and a biscuit and gave me helpful route advice. This, I thought happily as I supped, is what Slow Travel is all about.
With the rain stopped I could get back on my bike. Eventually the rough farm track turned into tarmac and hurtled past Gordale Scar to Janet’s Foss, a cute waterfall swelled by the recent rains in a fairylike dell. I had a quick wild dip. A very quick wild dip. It wasn’t the balmiest.
Luckily I had something very warming in the hostel fridge waiting for me just half a mile downhill from here: a fish curry I’d prepared last night whose chilli heat could be measured not in Scoville units but megatons.
I love Slow Travel.
*Supposedly ‘Aptrick’