Twelve
of us had enjoyed a superb weekend in April in Snowdonia with glorious weather,
outrageously gorgeous scenery and a healthy slice of entertaining banter. Our next weekend in Upper Wharfedale promised
to be just as good! At
the end of the weekend in Snowdonia I may have kindly or stupidly said that if
nobody else was willing to lead our next weekend away then I would. Kind or
stupid? You decide.
My
weekend started with a train trip to Skipton.
Upon my arrival in Skipton I was met by Neil who had kindly offered to
help me with the shopping, of which our bargain buy was marmalade for 27p. After doing the shopping we headed to the beautiful
Yorkshire Dales to a place called Buckden in Upper Wharfedale. We were early to meet the ranger Roisin so we
headed for the local pub. 30 minutes
later we met up with Roisin. She showed
us round the bunkhouse which is lovely.
One of the rooms is even ensuite as is the leaders’ room! That evening Neil and myself dined on pizza
& salad with the others arriving throughout the evening, these being Tim,
Louise, Jo, John, Nita, Sam and Sam’s very good friend Carbe. That evening we took part in a little
libation and swapped stories.
Saturday
dawned cool and cloudy with some low cloud still lingering on the
hilltops. We were up early but Richard
must have been up earlier than any of us as he had left Stockport at 6.30 that
morning and arrived with us just after 8am. Breakfast consisted of cereal and toast and we
broke with tradition with bacon and eggs on offer too. We
were ready to go at 9.30 when ranger Peter and new ranger Patrick arrived. They told us that we were the first group to
use the basecamp and that the day’s task would not be rhody bashing as expected
but laurel bashing. Peter drove the
pickup and Patrick walked with us to show us where the worksite was. We didn't use the cars at all for the time we
were there which was a change. Having
walked along the river and up into Redmire Wood we reached our worksite for the
day. It was on quite a slope but we
weren't going to let that get in the way of our work.
The wood was created for Buckden House which
was the residence of Sir John Charles Ramsden and his wife during
1831-1879. It was then lived in and
cared for by the Stansfield Family until 1938. The woods themselves were used as a pleasure park
and so had lots of interesting trees and built features. There were many carriage tracks going up the side
of the hill for folk of years gone by to enjoy views of the valley. It was this we were trying to get back. It will never be as it was as there are some
very large trees, some of which are quite rare.
The laurel had been left and was out of control and so we were getting
rid of it. We did this by dividing into
three groups and cutting and dragging cut laurel into large piles. We worked hard and at break and lunchtime enjoyed
cake and biscuits. Richard had made some
very tasty shortbread. Maybe this is why
he couldn't join us until Saturday morning? Roisin had been baking cakes for the Malham
show which was taking place on the Saturday.
She had left one that hadn't gone quite right at the basecamp for us the
night before so we enjoyed that. We gave
it first prize! We ate our lunch in a
clearing and saw dark clouds lurking and just as we were finishing up the R
word happened and it was torrential for a while so we all dived for cover under
the trees. Once it had eased off we got
back to work in our waterproofs. We
finished work at 3pm and Peter and Patrick took us to see four very tall Giant
Redwood trees and we had a game of how many MNTVers can we it round the
trunk? Answer: 4. After this we headed back to the pickup via a
viewpoint, onto the basecamp and straight to the Buck Inn. We spent a while there and that evening dined
on pasta bolognese, garlic bread, salad and for pudding meringues with
strawberries and cream. My thanks to Louise for her help in the kitchen.
Sunday
dawned bright but cloudy. Sam and Carbe
left after breakfast and today our ranger was Roisin. We spent the morning carrying on with the
work we had started the day before, but because there were less of us we only
split into two groups. During our break
Roisin produced some of her prize winning cakes - the flapjack was particularly
nice. We finished working at 1pm and
upon arrival back at the basecamp we again headed to the pub. I should point out here we are not alcoholics
just enjoy each other’s company! After a
drink we went back to the basecamp and had lunch which was leftovers. It was after this that people started
departing. As Neil and I were staying until
Monday we said we would clean. John went
for a walk. The last to depart was Richard - he left at about 5.30 which left Neil,
John and I. We ended the weekend with a
trip to the pub for our evening meal.
My
thanks must go to Neil for all his help and the lifts and to the committee for
their belief in me organising the weekend!
Ally
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