Mrs Perrin has gone off with her old school mates to Malham to, apparently, recreate their Geography field trip of 45 years ago. This involves, apparently, the necessity of sojourning in what I believe is called a/an 'hotel' or a 'public house' of some description. I'm told that these places provide facilities including 'a bed', 'a bath' and indeed 'a breakfast', whatever they might be. Doesn't sound anything like my Geography field trip at all. I think I'm being led up the garden path here somewhere.

Anyroad, Reg has obviously been banished and told to provide his own entertainment for a few days. Naturally I've decided to re-live my youth as well and trotted off on a cavepacking expedition. 26 or so Mid Wales metal mines trip done a couple of years ago, and 36 or so N Wales slate quarries last year, so let's how we get on with caves - that should complete the trio. YD30.0? Note the decimal point. Not sure what route but away up Ribblesdale somewhere and around Dentdale. Let's see how many caves we can tick off - my dogeared Yorkshire caving books are packed and weigh more than my shelter.. Rumours I might even bump into a certain Mr B Whitestone at some point.

Hopefully the whole thing will be a bit of a Giggle-swick...



..... and I really should be searching for a kipping spot in the daylight. But why break the habit of a lifetime, and my spot radar works in the dark anyway. So time for refreshment in the Talbot in Settle while considering the matter, with a felafel burger and a Theakston's or two....

Lots of pics please Reg - I do like a cave me.

RIP wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 7:21 pm .... my spot radar works in the dark anyway.

Says the man who once slept in a shed and didn't realise it was at the bottom of someone's garden until the light of the morning

Ah yes but there were extenuating circumstances. It's just that they, er, escape me for the moment.

Managed to extricate meself from the pub and, surprise surprise, I am indeed now on the hunt for a shed or similar indoor accommodation, because, obviously, there's now an 'unexpected" dispensation of precipitation which wasn't advertised!! Bloody Rain Man.....

Just find a cave or Pothole Reg, no probs if it rains torrentially if you are underground.....

Good idea Phil . Well I tried the lime kiln but it turned out to be otherwise occupied! Gracefully retreat and try again...

.... at the old standby: a cow byre. Just a few spiders for company.

A pleasant night away in a manger since there was no room at the inn.

Second breakfast partaken of in the bike shop in Settle, departing somewhat late after nattering to a German chap doing LEJOG.



Nice nosh although the avocado was basically half of one unceremoniously upended on the plate. Well we are in Yorkshire I guess, trendiness in a slightly begrudging way and fair play to that I say. Anyroad, I'd decided to take the Crummack green lanes towards Selside to see what they're like 'the wrong way round'. Just as beguiling but 'up hill' as it happens. Stopped for a rest at the clapper bridge and promptly forgot to pick my Temres 281 gloves back up. No more washing up for me this trip then. Needless to say they weren't there 2 days later on our way back.





(cont'd...

A quick visit to Austwick Beck Head for Stu's first photo. This is a powerful resurgence for many holes higher up.



The vague idea then was to follow the bridleway over to Selside. After the event, Mr Wightman claimed that it was 'a wide flat green sward' or words to that effect, but the reality for Reg was a deathmarch across tussock and grike hell, including hoiking the old girl over a five foot wall and two fences. Must be pretty athletic horses round here is all I can say. So either Bob was wrong or the map was wrong because Reg can't possibly have been wrong. On the upside I 'enjoyed' quite a remote limestone plateau with far reaching views and a fantastic carpet of hundreds of orchids.





[cont'd...

From Selside I tried to sneak down the footpath/track to Old Ing but got rumbled by the farmer within 100 yards so it was back up to the road with my tail between my legs. After this I thought it might be taking the wee to pay my 10p to the same bloke so I could go up the hill to view Alum Pot, and I continued up the road to the next turn off to Old Ing. Here the farmer was quite happy to let me use his track toll-free and the result was a remote-feeling route over the Ribble up to the Pennine Bridleway.



I found that the PBW north from here was incredibly rough and rocky and not particularly enjoyable - sorry to be an old whingebag - but at least I could view God's Bridge and Calf Holes. It's always fascinating to see stream-sinks, one minute the torrent is there and next minute it's been engulfed by some fearful chasm leading to the underworld.





Over the bridge at Ling Gill, followed by a unpleasant section and the left turn down the hill to Far Gearstones. Quite steep but due to the very strong headwind now, it felt quite strange to have to pedal hard to get down it.



[cont'd....

Must be pretty athletic horses round here is all I can say. So either Bob was wrong or the map was wrong because Reg can't possibly have been wrong

PS: When did Reg start referring to herself in the third person ... (I'm sure it's the third person). Not complaining or nuffink as it adds a dimension to Reg's posts.

PPS: I have just had a Tesco's finest organic carrot as a snack and it was a tasteless watery mess. Awful.

As you were.

At this point I thought of toddling down the valley to Katnot Cave where it's possible to ride in the stream up the tunnel for a few hundred yards. Stupidly I declined this option because time seemed to be moving on (kicked myself in retrospect - there's always time...), and instead called in on Holme Hill Cave. This is a particularly character-building little collector's item. I'll let the write-up speak for itself: "Easy going for 122m in 1.5m stream passage. In dry settled weather stream can be followed by constricted crawling in water for 61m to emerge in shakehole just E of main road. The continuation has little airspace to a squeeze after 9m, but beyond the passage improves slightly to allow progress along a low canal passage. After 122m are two short ducks (quack quack) to a sump. This has been dived through 3m of tight submerged passage to more low canal and a junction. The stream can be followed along a small tube which rapidly gets too tight, while the bedding to the left is blocked by shingle. The whole of the upper cave should be avoided in wet weather as airspace is limited".

Luckily it started to drizzle so that got me off the hook. Must return some day and enjoy its charms to the full .






[cont'd in a while....

( well that's curious. In the shower just noticed five oily chain ring teeth marks neatly etched across my left shin. I have absolutely no recollection of it happening so I was either having loads of fun or the exact opposite).

A PBW sign led me up a track which bent round to a farm where I was savaged by two enormous hounds with red eyes and slavering jaws. OK, a couple of sheepdogs barked a semifriendly greeting but that's not noteworthy enough. So I retreated to the previous junction where a non-existent sign told me I should have gone straight on instead. The wind really was very strong by this point, luckily three-quarters behind which made the ascent of Wold Fell almost bearable. It was still a four-chocolate-eclair climb though.

I'd thought of dropping down Arten Gill to the road but Bob had suggested viewing a potential bivvy spot in a disused farm further on. This turned out to be hard of access due to a deep ford but at least I'd enjoyed the stupendous views down Dent Dale. Anyway the last time Bob recommended a 'nice spot up a bit of a hill' I endured a 1000' climb up a 1-in-5 hill in the dark in the pissing rain after my pub dinner to get to a derelict barn with hanging-death roof tiles and a sheepshit-strewn floor, and it turned out this one would have been exactly the same in a 'hilarious' repeat situation .



[cont'd in another while......

From the Coal Road above Dentdale, Penyghent and Ingleborough in the distance...



Arten Gill viaduct and Whernside...



Bit of a top-up with the Trailshot...



View of Dentdale from the Coal Road...



..... then down past Dent station (highest mainline station in England at 1150' for you pub quiz afficionados) and round to the Sportsman at Cowgill, who .... don't open for another two hours, sigh.

Ah well, a good excuse to pull in a few caves along the River Dee (the second river of the same name since February's Llangollen BaM, named after a Famous Bearboner). This is one of those curious limestone rivers that can't make its mind up whether it's supposed to flow above or below ground.

Quite a substantial flow from Cowgill but when it arrived at the Ibbeth Peril caves it crashed over a waterfall into a pool, which then appeared to go precisely nowhere. Quite un-nervingly it just sat there and the riverbed downstream was totally dry.

Annoyingly out of focus pic of Ibbeth Peril cave and pool. Great name - Peril by name, peril by nature. Most cave descriptions here are prefixed with "floods rapidly and completely with little or no warning". A nice bit of un-Yorkshirelike overstatement there. Normally everything's understated like Bob's little hill but they're not messing about here.



A little further down we have the cutely monikered flat-out-crawl Nameless Cave....



... and finally the fearsome Tub Hole which disgorges the entire underground flood flow from the upper valley sinks. "Fills rapidly and completely to the roof etc etc etc..." . You just don't want to be 1km up the tunnel when it does.



[cont'd....

Bob's done a top job round the corner with the next day's story, so just a few extra bits....

I must compliment him on actually riding and training it to Dent armed only with a very vague "I'll see you in Dent on Friday morning then", and that had been a couple of weeks previously, since on arrival in Dentdale my phone had no signal so he didn't even know I was in the county! Still, when us Boners say we're going to do something we do it.

I'd spent the night Gatewood-caped on a flat spot somewhere in the village, waited a couple of hours by the church for the shop, then brewed my porridge and ovaltine in the graveyard. There's only two roads down into Dent and I'd obviously picked the wrong one to wait at but Bob found me eventually, chilling listening and watching the swifts and sparrows.



The climb up to Kingsdale was indeed quite challenging although I managed to ride most of it. When Bob pointed out the YD300 climb on the other side of the valley I doffed my cap to sufferers of it. The landscape hereabouts is of course quite bleak, along with the iconic miles and miles of stone walling. The impressiveness of these is somewhat tempered by the fact that, as Bob pointed out, they were all a product of the Enclosures. So much for the bucolic unchanging 'olde Englande'.

Our Bob ready for the blast down into Kingsdale...



Entrance to Yordas Cave...



Underground bikepacking.... and an excellent potential bivvy spot too...



Chap about to lower himself down Bull Pot, and some other bloke in a strange gilet....



The gaping chasm of Rowten Pot, right next to the track - no elfen-safety fences here of course!



The last time I rode the Turbary Road was in the other direction on one of my first MTB rides way back in 1986. Hadn't changed much!

A brew and some Welsh Rabbits and paninis in Ingleton refuelled us for the climb over to Clapham for yet another brew in the sunshine at the cafe, then Bob introduced me to the interesting tunnels that lead over towards Austwick.



A welcome return visit to the Austwick green lanes in the 'right direction' but without Temres gloves then down to Settle for some food and drink, sadly bypassing Elaine's teashop at Feizor as tempus was fugitting. She would have been the fifth eatery of the day so that was a shame.



As Bob mentioned there was an unusually large selection of barnery for potential kipping, but a lot of them were somewhat threadbare and we'd set our heart on the spectacular limestone kilns. That was until we spotted an absolute gem which Bob had previously seen so many times that he'd almost ridden past it until I requested a quick viewing. It was a cracker. We duly returned after dinner and I must say it was one of the comfiest nights I've ever had, with thick straw for a mattress and a proper door and everything! It even had a trendy mezzanine level which Bob explained was for storing cattle feed which could easily be dragged down to the mangers.







Bob was up and away at sparrow's fart while I had a two hour lie in listening to the birds in the eaves. Lovely. Then over to Malham to meet Mrs P and her mates at their posh pub. The pub people were so sympathetic to my 'horrible nights out' they insisted on giving me a free full breakfast to 'build me up again' .

A corking few days with lots of variety and interesting situations.

Barns: 1
Byres: 1
Pubs: 3
Cafes: 5
Caves/Potholes: 16

Excellent Reg (and Bob) must get down there some time, without having to ride 300k in 2 days!

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 9:02 pm Just find a cave or Pothole Reg, no probs if it rains torrentiallymilar if you are underground.....

you be as dry as a rat up a drain pipe in a similiar climatic super-condensation!

The pub people were so sympathetic to my 'horrible nights out' they insisted on giving me a free full breakfast to 'build me up again' .

Jammy git! Sounds like a great trip

Rob S wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 2:15 pm

The pub people were so sympathetic to my 'horrible nights out' they insisted on giving me a free full breakfast to 'build me up again' .

Jammy git!

It's my puppy-dog eyes what do it (*)

(*) and the resting of my chin on the landlady's lap too of course