Cool in Yorkshire

Pendragon Castle

So I think I slipped into a coma last night!  I don't remember turning the light off, and Matt says I was deep asleep in seconds.  Guess I needed it!

It dawned nice and sunny this morning - not hot though, which was nice.  We decided to have a day out in the countryside.  After a bit of deliberating, we headed out on the Garsdale to Kirkby Stephen road to the remains of Pendragon Castle.

Now this was a turn up for the books.  It is on private land, but you are allowed to enter and explore, AND there are no fences and no signs telling you to keep off.  This meant that we went clambering mad.  Unfortunately lots of farm animals have been there, making some of the clambering a bit smelly and slimy but it was good.

Kings of the castle

We then went for a walk up a hill searching for waterfalls on the map.  We didn't find them!  We did get wet in the boggy hillside though, so decided to call it a day and head back down.  It was now time for lunch so we decided to try out the local pub, the Moorcock Inn.  We were very very pleasantly surprised.  The service was very good and although the menu wasn't huge or particularly interesting, we discovered when we got our food it was all made from scratch, including Tom's chicken bites - we were impressed and will be back.

Next stop was Hawes, as we received a request from Michael for some Wensleydale cheese when we visit later in the week.  We did a quick once around Elijah Allen's as well and seemed to end up spending quite a bit on interesting deli type purchases.  Hawes was absolutely rammed, we thought maybe there was an event on, but think it was just full of day trippers from the city - mostly on motorbikes.  The creamery was really busy too, so we had a drink first, hoping the queue would go down, it didn't!  We stood in line and believe it or not a Japanese family queued behind us (they work at the Nissan factory in Washington).  Matt did his usual party trick and got the required reaction - well you wouldn't expect to meet a fluent Japanese speaker in Hawes would you?

Local resident

We headed back home via Dent, Deepdale and Kingsdale to enjoy the hills in the sun.  We then did some gardening - i.e. chopping some bushes back and pulling weeds out of the soil) before having a small tea.  A quiet, relaxing and enjoyable day.