Hello beloved reader!
Welcome to Faye’s Tiny Travel Guides. As the title suggests, this is a whistle-stop tour of what I love (and think you would too!) about the places I visit. It’s not comprehensive of course, but it won’t cost you £4.99 and take up valuable pants space in your travelbag! And you can never have enough pants. I’m just saying…
Starting close to home with issue #1, i’m featuring Burnsall, a small (and quite lovely) village in the Yorkshire Dales. I’ll start by saying this is definitely a place for walkers, nature lovers, and those wanting to ‘get away from it all’ – ‘it’ being a phone and wifi signal, mainly. If you’re after livelier activities like shopping or bar crawling then this is not for you! Anyone else, do continue…
Personally, i’d begin the day with a brew (thus confirming northern stereotypes) at the tea hut in the main village car park. If you head for the river you can’t miss it, as it’ll probably be surrounded by a queue of cagool-clad ramblers and their pets – walkers = doggies, which is always a highlight! The coffee here is really good, plus they serve it in mugs so you feel like you’ve gone camping without the horror of not showering for 4 days. As to be expected, bacon sarnies and ice creams are on offer, with added home baked goodies to, *ahem*, ‘fuel’ your exercise.
The order of the day after this is always the same: walk, sit, lunch, walk, sit, pub, and is often interspersed with ‘admire wonderful view’, ‘get lost and shout at boyfriend’, and ‘wee in prickly bush’ – that isn’t just us, right?
So where to walk?
We’ve done a couple of different walks from here now. Both are around 4 hours, but one is definitely more strenuous (and has less cafes) than the other. I’ve picked out the main features below, but to keep my guides ‘tiny’ they’re sparse on directions, so of course planning a route before you head off is a good idea.
Linton Falls and Grassington
This is the gentler of the two walks! Follow the path of the river from Burnsall right to the impressive Linton Falls – with lots of flat land and a well trodden path to follow this is an easy route and there’s not really any potential to get lost, which i know is a worry for many people walking. Leaving Burnsall you’ll walk through a woodland past impressive rock formations, bubbling streams and the odd duck or two. On the whole a very calming route.
Coming out of the woods you’ll need to cross a suspension bridge. It is a bit disconcerting when you’re wobbling above a river on a bridge with 20 other unstable tourists, but a bit of excitement nonetheless.
The path opens out onto fields at this point, leading to Linton Falls, formed by the river Wharfe taking a series of drops over a weir and crumbly rocks. They’re not the mightiest of features but, I’ve got a real soft spot for waterfalls, and there’s something soothing about the rushing force of the rapids when you stand watching for a while. But if you don’t dig falls like i do, you can head straight on to Grassington.
Grassington has a lot more going on than in Burnsall, so if you fancy making a weekend of it, staying here and doing the walk in reverse might be a plan. We’ve stayed at Grassington Lodge (students/the unemployed/anyone else watching daytime TV, it may sound familiar, won on ‘Four in a Bed) which was fab. There’s also four pubs and a whole host of twee crafty shops. And please go to No.5 for tea – the food is AMAZING.
Grassington is your end point so, once fully fed/watered, just turn it around and back on up the way you came. This may be a down point for some but, everything looks different after a few beers anyway!!!
Trollers Gill & Applestreewick Pastures
This photo is here because sheep feature A LOT in this walk. There are so many sheep. All the sheep. Do not go on this walk if you have a fear of sheep.
I’d say this is more challenging because it involves a lot more hill climbs, stiles, and takes more navigating. Or, if you’re my boyfriend, takes somebody else navigating – seriously, if i listened to him we would still be out there somewhere.
If you’re up for it this is a great one because you get a round trip, so every step gives you a fresh view of the striking dales landscape. Again, start following the river from Burnsall, but in the opposite direction (right from the tea hut, Grassington is left) and you get a bit of forest covering followed by, you guessed it, SHEEP, and once through the farmers field it’s a long climb up. But my god is it worth it when you get there. The walk to the top should take around two hours, so we took a picnic and ate it right on the top of the hill. Looking at this:
Seriously gorgeous and so moody in overcast weather.
You finally come downhill again on the path to Trollers Gill but don’t let that fool you – once you get there, the only way is up. On the road you’ll find Perceval hall, a great opportunity for those of you who fancy somebody else making your lunch to stop off!
Trollers Gill is the highlight for me – reminiscent of it’s big brother Malham Cove, it’s a huge limestone (not to be confused with limescale, as my boyfriend called it) formation carving serpent-like into the grassy valley. If you can navigate your way through all the sheep -who were literally on guard across the path – it’s a lovely spot, and if anyone frequents a bit of rock climbing (Who are you?!) i believe that’s on offer too.
Now for a bit of practical advice: up until this point you are unlikely to see any other humans around, and you’re in a sheltered grassy valley. So please, please if you need a wee, now is the time to go. Spoiler alert.
The path leading from Trollers Gill goes past a disused mine shaft which is super creepy but worth a look. You’ll feel like every teenager making bad decisions at the start of a scary film. We also saw a dead bunny, but i hope you won’t see one of those (RIP BUN-E-BUN). From here you climb and climb until your knees burn like a scotch bonnet, but i promise once you’re up there the view is so spectacular. Try to imagine if Emily Bronte wrote Lord of the Rings, and that’s the picture from the top of Appletreewick pastures. Bask in the breeze and breathe in that view.
It’s another descent from then on back towards Burnsall, and here is a lesson in why you should have gone for that wee. It is really high up with no foliage except nettles, and you are quite literally exposed , both to the elements and to anyone in a 3 mile radius.
Covering my dignity with my waterproof tied round my waist, i had to go. What i didn’t realise is, in shielding the front, what i was acually doing was flashing my bare arse to a field full of sheep and the farmer who had just arrived to feed them.
Anyhow, other than that it should be an uneventful stroll back through those customary dry stone walls that are only like that in the Dales, until you reach Burnsall again. By this point you will almost certainly be knackered and should treat yourself in the Red Lion Pub. Overlook the river and realise you did good!
As with anywhere in the a National Park the possibilities for walking routes are endless, so just pick something manageable for your fitness level and take a map – I Can’t promise there won’t be sheep though!
Happy Travels,
Faye
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