North Yorkshire Hiking Adventures

Following a brilliant week in Pembrokeshire last month, Chris and I have been fortunate to have had another brilliant staycation week, this time in the Yorkshire Dales. This was plan D for our end of October/beginning of November 2020 trip to coincide with our 10th wedding anniversary:

• Plan A was 2 weeks in Malaysian Borneo which we came up with in February but didn’t get to book…
• Plan B was our re-scheduled trip to Italy (which was cancelled in May, moved to October and then cancelled again… it’s now re-booked for 2021…)
• Plan C was a week in a Scottish castle… booked very briefly until Scotland tightened up its Covid regs a few weeks ago…
• Plan D was a week in the Yorkshire Dales which actually happened, yay!

Newsflash! Just as we are about to publish this post, Boris Johnson has announced tonight that the UK will enter a 4-week national lockdown on 5th November… this means all international and UK holidays are cancelled so I am even more grateful we were able to have taken this one in this ‘hit and miss’ year.

Together with our friends, Flo & Mike and Russell & Roza, we rented a fabulous 6 bedroom holiday house located in a village called Catterick in North Yorkshire, just about scraping in with the current magic number of 6 persons permitted indoors!

This was our base for a week which gave us good access to the Yorkshire Dales and the North Yorkshire Moors with plenty of hiking opportunities.

Our itinerary:

• Day 1: arrived at the holiday house had dinner in the local pub
• Day 2: climbed Buckden Pike and Roza’s dinner
• Day 3: 6 mile circular walk to Bolton Castle and Aysgarth Waterfalls, tea and cake in Richmond and Flo’s dinner
• Day 4: climbed Whernside mountain, tea and cake in Hawes and Chris & I cooked dinner
• Day 5: day trip to Whitby and curry in the Taj Mahal in Richmond
• Day 6: 11 mile circular walk from Keld
• Day 7: Roseberry Topping and Captain Cook monument; tea and cake in Great Ayton; dinner in the Black Bull, Moulton
• Day 8: breakfast in Richmond, then home…

We stayed in the centre of Catterick, a pretty village located 6 miles south of Richmond and 8 miles north-west of Northallerton. Catterick has a small number of amenities with a couple of takeaways, a Co-op and a handy pub just across the stream!

On the banks of the River Swale, Richmond is a historic market town with a large cobbled market square and a 900 year old Norman castle. There are several coffee shops, restaurants, hotels and pubs so would be a good place to stay if you didn’t want to self cater. We would recommend the Taj Mahal where the 6 of us enjoyed a delicious curry one evening!

Richmond Castle had an imposing position overlooking the town and the River Swale. We didn’t go inside however it is apparently one of North Yorkshires top tourist attractions. In order to visit, thanks to Coronavirus and the need to limit numbers, you need to book your tickets in advance and online.

Formerly a working train station which from 1846 served the Dalton to Richmond branch line, The Station is now a collection of local artisan shops including a brewery and also a cinema. The station was closed in 1969 but following redevelopment in 2007 it now has a real community vibe and is well worth a visit.

The cafe/bar retains the original features of the station and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Russell & Roza joined us for a really tasty breakfast here on our last day with the best eggs benedict ever!

Catterick holiday house

With its 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, the house was large and comfortable for 3 x couples to share for a week. Similar to our recent week in Pembrokeshire (with Yvey & Matt and Clare & Steve), we had 3 meals throughout the week where each couple took it in turns and cooked for all 6 of us and we had dinner out on the other 4 days.

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The kitchen had a handy old-fashioned drying rack, perfect for drying our waterproofs following a few days of less than perfect weather…

The next few posts will cover details of our daily trekking adventures…