Here you can see the report from our latest walk and also some of the pictures that were taken.

Unless otherwise stated, report by Paul Coates and pictures by Keith Bilton.

Thursday 7th. May 2009

Rosedale East, Railway, East Mines, Sturdy Bank, Road, Reeking Gill, Railway, Rosedale Head, Lion Inn, Railway, Little Blakey, High House Farm, Craven Garth Farm, Rosedale East (8.5 miles).

Sunny with strong cold north westerly wind.

Chris, Paul, Keith, John, Col, Paul Craggs, Ray, Jack, Stu, Paul 'Sherlock' Holmes, Bob.

Col, Chris, Ray.

Rosedale panorama

Not sure if we've ever started a walk from the old miner's cottages at Rosedale East before, but if we have the memory of it has been lost in the mists of time. It was certainly blowing a gale as we got ready and no one was lingering too long in what passes for spring weather in these parts.

Col & Ray had elected to park on some rough pasture while Chris opted for the more traditional grass verge alongside a phone box. The first rare sighting of the day was a telephone directory inside the phone box. Is there a web site to report such unusual sightings?

A short climb up from Rosedale East and we were soon on the track bed of the long closed (1929) lead mining railway. Here we got the full blast of the cold north westerly wind in our faces. While walking along the railway Bob was showing off his new camera but his joy soon turned to despair as he discovered the battery was flat, or so he thought. Sherlock soon put him right on the dark art of photography by pointing out that the best way to take pictures is to turn the camera on first. Poor embarrassed Bob swore Sherlock to secrecy over his inability to get to grips with camera basics and indeed Sherlock only told me and in turn I'm only telling you, so keep it to yourself!

After a mile or two of railway walking we struck off up a nameless gully with a path that doubled as a stream in places. At least the sides of the gully gave us protection from the wind so we decided to have our morning break in this remote moorland spot. There would certainly be no shelter from the wind further up on the open moor.

Chris and Col

The main purpose of today's walk was to find a suitable place to site Barry's plaque returned to us last year by the two Dave's. The original site of the plaque was at Ralph's Cross close to where Barry's ashes are scattered. As the plaque had been removed by persons unknown some years earlier we thought it prudent to try and place it in a more remote location.

The head of Reeking Gill is certainly remote and well away from any footpaths. We found a suitable flat rock to fix the plaque too alongside a stream which tumbled over adjacent rocks on its way down to form the infant River Seven.

Reeking Gill

Stu had brought some special 'sticks anything to anything' glue to fix the brass plaque (click) to the rock. After a few minutes the deed was done and hopefully the plaque will remain at the head of Rosedale for years to come.

The way down Reeking Gill could be best described as 'interesting' as we clambered over rocks, slithered down grassy slopes, hung on to stray stalks of heather as we dropped down steep banks, criss-crossed the stream a few times and nimbly negotiated the sometimes very boggy ground.

The location of the plaque

Craggsy and Col chose a more sporting route which was far steeper than the one alongside the Gill. Craggsy slid down the grassy bank doing a perfect impression of a one man avalanche scattering rocks and stones in all directions.

Even more scary were the resultant rips and holes in his ancient trousers revealing glimpses of his nether regions to anyone rash enough to glance in his direction.

It's likely all those present made a mental note to ensure they remain well ahead of Chancellor Craggs if there were any further hills to climb. Even the sheep kept their distance.

The Lion Inn was our next port of call where, apart from the usual drinking and money laundering, we discussed our next outing which will be our annual trip to Kettlewell.

One spoon Stu's choice of sweet today was sticky toffee pudding and custard. He certainly seemed to enjoy it and we think he also ate the pattern off the dish.

After The Lion it was back down to the Rosedale railway. We had our afternoon grub stop above High House Farm giving us great views across Rosedale.

A nice piece of architecture (shame about the view through the arch).

The sun was out and we were sheltered from the wind by the high moors behind us. A couple of our windswept group even had a quick nap, something that was once de-rigour on sunny days.

Of course the names of the culprits won't be mentioned here, mainly because I was asleep at the time.Our planned route should have taken us to Trough House and the top end of Fry Up Dale, but with Barry's plaque successfully re-sited and our adventure in getting out of Reeking Gill our 8 & half miles was enough.