We're just back from a visit to Aysgarth in North Yorkshire. A lovely
area, pastoral and peaceful. Dry stone walls divided up the snow streaked hills.
Sheep grazed the hills. Villages retained their age-old character. The Aysgarth
falls could be heard from the well-appointed
holiday bungalow we were in,
we walked from the bungalow and saw three sets of falls. A great area for
walkers not that we count as such. We dined twice at the
Aysgarth Falls Hotel
which had a peculier backwards clock, and books around the walls.
The weather wasn't brilliant - it rained quite a bit, we had to riskily drive
through a flooded road to get home. The Satnav wasn't that trustworthy, it
wasn't sure where the bungalow was, and
it took us down a one-track country lane which was blocked when we tried to
see
Fountains Abbey. Very stressful reversing back to where we could turn
around. The weather smiled for once as we gave up, and instead saw the ruins of
Jervaulx Abbey, which were impressive hinting of when it was a major
monastery.
Also worth seeing was the
Wensleydale Creamery, not just for its Wallace
and Gromit connection. Cheese seemed to be an ingredient of all the dishes in the
restaurant! The cheese production seemed to be a factory process, but they
produce a lot of cheese.
We had a good visit to the
White Scar Cave, seeing the Ribblehead Viaduct
en route. The safety helmets were a must in the cave, particularly for the
two low sections. The cave was wetter than others I've been in, a lot of the
path was over a stream, there was a noisy waterfall, water was running over
the rocks beside the path. The Sword of Damocles stalactite was held up
by string and glue as someone deliberately broke it on the first day of
public access!
We also appreciated a visit to the
Georgian Theatre, a bit of
panicky rush getting there as parking was more than difficult in Richmond.
The tour was enlightening about the revolting habits of theatre-goers in
that era. A view into the past. We also saw the
Dales Countryside Museum,
a lot of detail about the history there. I was tempted and fell into the
sin of buying a teapot at
Ceramic Inspirations in Leyburn, and we also got
a few chocolates at the
Inspired Chocolate place next door.
We did see a couple of castles -
Bolton Castle and
Middleham Castle.
The ruins weren't inspiring for us on our visit, though the
muddy conditions and bird droppings didn't help.
There was some drama before we set off. We did our best but Amelia seized
an opening and hid in the spare room bed. Virginia used the hoover to force
her out leading to a traumatised cat which took refuge inside a cat tree!
We had to tilt the cat tree over to capture Amelia.
My packing wasn't perfect either - this time I forgot leads to recharge my razor
and a new vest! Lists to take are similar to software testing. You build
up software tests based on what you think need testing, as well as
problems found. So I've expanded my to take lists based on what I've forgotten.