Hot August night in York!

Monday 26th August

We know it’s summer here but the weather is much warmer than we anticipated and last night we had a very HOT AUGUST NIGHT! Our hotel room does not have air conditioning but it does double glazed windows and is very comfortable in every other way. To cut a long story short we ended up with 2 electric fans in our room and a refund for last night’s accommodation…Andrew did a good job! We’re staying here again tonight and hope it’s a little cooler…the lowest temperature we could achieve in our room last night was 27 degrees! The up side is that I washed our all of our socks and undies & they’re all dry now J

This morning we set off to the Yorkshire Dales and stopped off in Ripon to visit Fountains Abbey, it was our first opportunity to use our National Trust membership and we thought we’d spend about an hour there but ended up staying all morning.

We explored the magnificent ruins of the once great abbey, destroyed by Henry V111 in the 16^th century. 

At the other end of the valley is Studley Royal a spectacular water garden created in the 1700’s. The pathway from the visitors centre through the magical abbey and around the tranquil water gardens and back is a big loop of about 2 ½ miles and we stopped off at Fountains Hall, Mill and quite a few of the follies in the garden along the way. We tried to take photos of the water gardens but couldn’t quite get the whole scene into one exposure.

We enjoyed a light lunch at the National Trust Café and then set off for the Yorkshire Dales.

The first stop was the gorgeous village of Pateley Bridge

From there we drove through Grassington and we did try to take photos along the way as we drove through the magnificent valley of Wharfedale and again during a sublime drive through Bishopdale but it was impossible to capture the magnitude of the Dales and the extent of the amazing dry stone walls that line both sides of the road and every paddock.

Our next stop was Aysgarth Falls, a triple set of dramatic waterfalls and we strolled through the woods to gaze into each set of the turbulent waters carving through the valley.

From there we drove to Hawes through Herriot country, where much of the filming for All Creatures Great And Small was done. Andrew almost swore a couple of times along this stretch…the roads are VERY narrow and you need to pull across to the side of the road to let oncoming traffic through!

In Hawes we spent some time at the Wensleydale Creamery. The creamery's museum explains that the Cistercians were making cheese in the dale as early as 1150, but it was Wallace and Gromit who propelled Wensleydale to global fame.

We took a different route back to York Via Ribblehead and Settle. We were awe-struck when the Ribblehead Viaduct came into view…it was completed in 1874!

Back in York we walked to the Chippie (Fish & Chip shop) next to our hotel for dinner where Andrew had an enormous piece of Haddock deep-fried in batter! I opted for steamed Salmon with salad. I just can’t understand how Andrew is losing weight…his pants are very loose and he’s tightened his belt another notch. I’m sure I haven’t lost any weight and I’ve taking the healthy options on the menu!