Today our first tour: into the Yorkshire Dales

Yesterday night we finished the day with a copious dinner with some (too large!) Haddock Fish & Chips so we all went to bed completely satisfied.

This morning we started at 8:30 with a glorious English breakfast, grabbed our stuff together, cleaned Brian’s Bella a bit because he parked her under a ‘bleeding’ tree and finally took off westward around 9:30.

On our way we first stopped just before Thirsk to fill all Bella’s up to be completely ready for todays trip through the Dales.

Along some very winding minor roads we first stopped in the lovely market town of Bedale where some ‘fairground attraction ‘ was going on.

While the ladies were ‘to-the-loo’ the gentlemen were enjoying the local brassband’s music (see the video).

Further on through the village of Leyburn we crossed the Whipperdale Bank military shooting range - we could hear the nearby gunshots… - a beautiful narrow road going steeply up and down to reach the very picturesque old mining village of Reeth in the Swaledale valley.
The beautiful sloping green in the middle of town was unfortunately packed with cars of Sunday sightseers….

 
Unfortunately, on top of the Whipperdale climb we got the red flag because our leader of the pack speeded……

So we put our Bella’s there as well and had some drinks outside the Black Bull.

We returned the same way as we came from but before reaching the shooting range we turned right, steeply uphill over the most beautiful up and down and left and right ‘Alfaclub’ road to the other side of the hill into lovely Wensleydale. 
We made another stop at Bolton Castle, parked on the green and made some line up photos in front of the castle while the girls made a walk towards the castle but we decided not to visit it but to move on on our route….

The Aysgarth Waterfalls turned out to be almost dried up and besides too far away from the parking place so we went on again, missed Middleham Castle and also nearly missed Jervaulx Abbey, but found a place to turn around and parked the car across the Abbey where there ‘used to be’ a tearoom but it happened to be closed after COVID….

In the meantime KJ changed a greasy spark plug in B’s Giulia alongside the road so she could go on again with a healthier sounding engine.

So a short stroll around the completely ruined Abbey and off we went again searching for our tea / coffee with scones with jam and clotted cream we desperately longed for..

In the village of Masham - famous for its famous rivaling breweries - we finally popped in a snug tearoom to be rewarded with our scones.

After the final stretch to our home base the boys immediately sat around the fireplace (!) to be cooled down with some large beer again..

As the restaurant was closing at 18:00 we sat at dinner quite early where we were surprised with a special Sunday menu including Yorkshire Pudding! After Brian taught us how to eat it properly - with a lot of gravy poured over it - and some desserts we all decided to head for our rooms early and see what tomorrow will bring us…..