Ilkley North of the River

Yesterday had been a wash out for walking I’d driven up in the dales and every time I thought that maybe it was going to fair up 10 minutes later it had rained again. Today the sun was shining and I packed some lunch and set off to meet up at Ilkley Lido with the Bradford Council Guided Walkers Group. The day was set fair and there were 16 of us a good group.  Some I recognised from previous walks I’d done with this group in the past. Phil the leader and the Ken the back-up were both people I recognised. 

The first part of the walk was up through Middleton Woods just a steady pull emerging into a sunny field with a huge oak tree in the middle. 

We then carried on up the field to a small tarmacadam lane leading to a beautiful farm.  From here we went through a field towards Fairy Dell.  Phil suggested we keep our eyes peeled for any fairies, sadly we didn’t spot any.  

 

From here we arrived in a large field where we stopped for lunch. One sheep came over to see what we were up to but as soon as I got my camera out to take its photo it moved off – clearly camera shy (sheep are extremely photogenic and nearly always make a good photo for some reason). 

As we headed up the fields we looked across the heather moor and could see Beamsley Beacon in the distance. A little nearer was March Gill Reservoir and up ahead we could see two or three Red Kite hovering around. 

We eventually came onto a small lane down to another farm gate which took us back up onto the moor along a pretty boggy pathway to eventually go through as stile to drop back down onto a narrow back lane. 

  These pathways were not well used there were no trods in the fields so you wouldn’t have known they were public access just by looking.

This back lane quickly brought us into the small hamlet of Denton – every house here is just beautiful. 

From here we made our way back through the fields down onto Denton Old Road and back into Ilkley.  A lovely 8 mile walk, made up for yesterdays let-down,