Yorkshire Walks

This morning I drove with my son and a friend of mine to park on a gravel area of the road by the River Derwent about a quarter of a mile from the village of Langdale End (map ref. SE 943909) We set off at about 11.30am along the footpath upstream on the east bank of the River Derwent. It's a very pleasant wooded valley and in several of the pools by the path there were large clumps of frog spawn - the first I've noticed this year. We continued for almost 3 miles to a fork in the river where there is a footbridge. We did not cross the bridge, but instead took the footpath up the steep end of the escarpment to the viewpoint at Barns Cliff End. We turned onto the forest road along the edge overlooking Harwood Dale for about 2 miles to the car park at Reasty Hill Top. At the car park we sat on the seat at the view point for a few minutes before setting off again along the bridleway down Whisper Dales. It's a very pretty valley and will get much better over the next couple of months as all the spring flowers start to come out. After about 2 miles we reached the fords at Lowdales. Here the stream runs down the road in wet weather and there is a footpath a bit higher up in a field beside the road to by-pass the flood. At the point where this path re-joins the road there is an old sunken track on the opposite side of the road. We splashed through the water on the road to climb up this track for about half a mile to Broxa. The whole track is very muddy and the last hundred yards to the farm at Broxa are a good six inches deep in sloppy farm mud. We walked through the village and on the bend in the road leaving the village there is a pedestrian gate on the right that led us onto a path down the bank back to the car by the River Derwent. The whole route was just over 8 miles and took us about four and a quarter hours including a couple of breaks for a drink and a sandwich.