|
The
Mrs's Dales Diary
This
page follows the Dales Way south down the Lune
and up the Rawthey.
For the opening stages see
the Lakeland Section.
The
Lune & The Rawthey
Stage
4: The Lune
Wednesday
2nd May 2007
Temperature
into the 70s and sensibly leaving it until late to set
out to avoid the heat of the day. Midsummer? No,
just early May 2007.
Our
objective was to pick up the Dales Way from Lambrigg
Head and to finish somewhere around Sedbergh. We
left one car at Lincoln's Bridge and after the now customary
precautionary panic about keys, headed north over Firbank
Fell, stopping off at Fox's Pulpit. I thought
I knew all the roads around Kendal but I have no recollection
of being here before.
The
View from Fox's Pulpit
"Let
Your Lives Speak" says the plaque that tells
the tell of George Fox preaching from the rock to a
thousand seekers on Sunday 13th June 1652. Great
Power inspired his message and it proved to be the start
point of the Quaker movement.
I
had a rather smaller audience to listen to my message.
|
An
audience of one
|
Dodgers
and drugsters be warned
|
Where
the road crosses the motorway we saw a police van parked
up with a series of cameras aimed at the lanes below.
I thought I would take a photo and a policeman
immediately emerged and asked, politely, why? I
explained that we were doing the Dales Way and just
taking photos of interesting features on the way and
this seemed to satisfy him. He then went on to
inform me that these were not, as I had presumed, speed
cameras, but were being used for number plate recognition
and every time a suspect number was identified, there
was a ping on his computer and the man down the road
set off in pursuit. Their targets were licence
dodgers, uninsured drivers and drug dealers and they
had had a good week with several arrests and a big haul
of heroin.
The
even present Howgills
This
section of the Dales Way is overseen by the Howgills
that seem to monitor every step. We picked up the Way
where we had left it at
Lambrigg Head and headed over to Crook
of Lune, first passing under a magnificent viaduct for
a long disused railway. Has there ever been such
a year for bluebells?
|
Crook
of Lune Viaduct
|
A
riot of Bluebells
|
Crook
of Lune Bridge
|
Crook
of Lune Team Picture
|
View
from Crook of Lune Bridge
|
From
here we followed the Lune south, spotting en-route,
a heron, a mistle thrush, several dippers and what I
thought was a plover but now think, due to its orange
beak, may have been an oyster catcher. Some twitchers
told us that we had just missed the kingfisher, sadly.
|
Bluebell
Wood
|
Beware
of the Bull
|
|
Howgills
|
The
Way!
|
This
stretch of the Lune is lovely and relatively undiscovered.
It is possibly even better heading north as then
you would have the Howgills always in sight, Today,
they looked splendid.
The View to the North
Margaret
was delighted to find a farm with its washing on the
line. She likes me to take pictures of other folk's
washing. I suppose it's better than actually taking
the washing!
|
Washing
Day
|
Under
the Viaduct
|
Another
railway viaduct heralded our return to Lincoln's Bridge
where we decided to press on and complete a bit more of
the Way. Terry Marsh, whose guide we were using,
had had a good day so far with only a couple of minor
ambiguities but he got us lost in this section by not
defining which field boundary he meant.
|
The exit
fitted his description, sort of, but we soon realised
it could not be correct so retraced our steps to find
the correct exit and the delightful little hamlet of
High Oaks.
From
here we headed to the A684 (which apparently and intriguingly
is known as "Scotch Jeans") and on reaching it decided
that that was enough for today as we still had to get
back to the car.
We cut up Back Lane, past Ingmire
Hall which we thought had burned down but seems to have
been rebuilt as apartments which have just come on the
market.
|
Ingmire
Hall
|
|
A
window in St Gregory's Church
|
Back
on Scotch Jeans, we stopped at Saint
Gregory's Church which surprisingly
was still open.
We must have passed this dozens
of times over the years and I had always meant to have
a look inside.
It is well worth it if you like
simple, small churches with several stunning stained glass
windows.
Back
to the car and then return to Lambrigg Head to collect
the other car.
The policeman had obviously caught
his quota and gone home.
We did likewise.
As
we drove along Paddy Lane, the Lakeland skyline was
looking splendid in its post-sunset glow.
|
Stage
5: The Rawthey, Sedbergh and the Miracle
Friday
4th May
We
had been looking forward to Dentdale. The
guide book thrills about it although warns of surprisingly hard work. But first we had
to complete the "around Sedbergh" bit that we only half
did two days earlier.
|
