The North is completely different from the south of England.
The south is soft rich and pastoral. The north is harder and life clings more tenaciously to the rough hills.
It is quite beautiful and also very dramatic.
Below-A visit to see Linzy
Below-at some point driving one has to negotiate small lanes like this.
One car wide you have to remember the last wide space you passed so you can back up -or the other driver does.
One car wide you have to remember the last wide space you passed so you can back up -or the other driver does.
On through the Peninnes to the Yorkshire Dales.
The Yorkshire Dales are a series of parallel valleys that run east to west from the heights of the Pennine Hills to the North Sea.
The Penines are England’s backbone or spine. It is a very definite geographical feature of the north that divides the east from the west sides of the country. At the highest parts it can be very lonely and desolate with few trees and just scattered wet sheep. Only heather and gorse grow up there.
Above-Entering one of the Dales from the central Vale of York
As one descends into the valleys the hardness gives way to lush green fields.
Below-We stayed in the village of “Muker” (pronounced Mew-ker) in Swaledale.
We stayed at the BridgeHouse bed and breakfast.
Above-In Muker. Below– A pub nearby that smelled of peat smoke.
The village of Muker was a Nordic settlement in the 800’s
Below-The hills are glaciated limestone and it becomes eroded dramatically in places.
This makes for great caving or “potholing”.
This makes for great caving or “potholing”.
A WALK IN SWALEDALE
A bright sunny morning and an easy walk along the river for a few miles.
The river runs red with iron and perhaps peat washing down from the hills above.
Below- These sturdy stone barns that dot the landscape are built with no mortar.
Below Yorkshire is littered with ancient Monasteries all abandoned after the reformation.
