'Camel-Route-to-Iraq' Day

In case you're too young to understand my title, it comes from a Frank Sinatra song of the 1950s, in which 'Iraq' rhymes with the line, 'it's oh, so nice to wander back'.  I'd booked four nights on a campsite near Boroughbridge, but when I began to plan what to do with my time there, I realised the truth that underlies the travel brochures' adverts for 'a 5-day break in ...'.  What it really boils down to is a day to get there, three days' sightseeing and a day to come home.  Yesterday was exhausting.  I wanted to get my money's-worth and, by Thursday night, I was thinking that four nights deserved four days, too.

The hitch-free set-up

Having arrived on Monday at about 2.30, and got myself set up, I rejoiced that the new awning and windbreak could be set up without some of the feared problems of only having two hands (to do tasks several feet apart!), and set about relaxing and getting my on-site bearings.  Sightseeing began on Tuesday after a leisurely breakfast.  The 1A bus service from Roecliffe to Harrogate, which stops so conveniently outside the gate, unfortunately runs every two hours, with only four buses each way per day, so the first bus into town wasn't until 10.35.  Study of the map revealed, however, that there was a stop just beyone Knaresborough perfectly situated to visit Old Mother Shipton's Cave.  By 11.40, I'd paid my entrance fee and taken my first pictures of the 'scary exhibits'.

A typical mixture of myth and the supernatural, this tourist attraction, one of the oldest in the country, focuses on the life of a woman who, according to legend, was born in a cave in 1488 and grew up there with her mother.  She was disfigured and shunned by the local population and later made all kinds of prophecies which appear to have been fulfilled down the years.

The 3 Horseshoes - one of over twenty
coaching inns in Boroughbridge

The next day, with temperatures soaring into the high 20s C., I walked early into Boroughbridge and thoroughly enjoyed wandering around, noting the history and taking pictures.  Sited just off the motorway, the town's main street was once the main road from London to Edinburgh.

The Crown Hotel - in its heyday it
had stabling for a hundred horses

Being the half-way point between the two capitals, it was a favourite stopping point on that journey, and many of the coaching inns can still be seen, although some are now put to an alternative use.  After lunch taken in the sunshine outside a café, I got the bus back to the campsite and spent the rest of the day sunbathing.

I'd planned another excursion on Thursday, and began the same way, walking into the town.  I then joined a long queue for a 22 bus to Ripon. What a contrast between the small town I'd left and the 'city of the dales'.  I admit my opinion was coloured by the drizzle that greeted me there; without the freedom to take out my leaflets and maps to see where exactly to go, I wandered around some of the nearby streets, and around the open air market before returning to the bus station to go back to base, where I could be constructive with my time.  The afternoon was dry and quite pleasant but there was a noticeably strong wind at times, so I decided to take down the awning in readiness for my departure the next morning.

Yesterday, I combined the 'day to get home' with 'day 4 of the programme', making good use of the previous afternoon's preparations.  I set off at 10.0, with a view to seeing something of the dales scenery before heading south. My planned destination was Pateley Bridge, but on the way found myself passing the ruins of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey.

Fountains Abbey

I first went there some twenty-five years ago when taking part in a 'Medieval Monks & Monasteries' course at Durham University ... part of a wonderful scheme called Summer Academy, which folded some years ago now, owing to a change in people's holiday appetites.  After such a delay, I had forgotten much of the detail, until it was revived by the good fortune of arriving just as one of the day's two guided tours was about to get under way.

I then went on to Pateley Bridge and took a few pictures there, but was restricted by the time-limted on-street parking.  With something of the tourist aims thus fulfilled, I set off for the 180-or-so miles of the journey home, stopping for a very late lunch at Ferrybridge services and arriving home about 7.15pm.

I can now begin to evaluate the achievements of the week.  On the plus-side, I happened upon a smart little camera in a charity shop, a little more modern than mine, which should only need a memory card and cable to get in operating order, and I was persuaded to take out a year's membership of the National Trust, which will hopefully provide an incentive to get out more to see some of the heritage that is being preserved for us all.  The disappointment list is small, but is headed by the fact of the fridge in the motor-home not working, as I suspected on my last trip, when I found the milk was 'off'.  The same happened this week, too, but I have been experimenting with cottage cheese!