A Tan Hill to Swaledale Circuit by WSWG

WSWG is, of course, the Wednesday Walkers Walking on Saturdays Group.

And 12 walkers turned up at Tan Hill Inn, plus two dogs, Bailey and LTD.

I’d reccied the route a few days earlier along with LTD in humid and oddly-sunny-with-hillfog sorta conditions. The route  initially follows a path over Robert Seat which was also used on me and Dawn’s Beer-Trekkin Trek. This leads fairly easily over the moor to Ravenseat where me and Dawn, or was it Dawn and me(?)  had sheltered from the rain in the barn with cups of tea and scones and cream back in May.

On the reccy I didn’t stop but batterred on towards Keld, catching up with an Australian with a sore toe and some seashells hanging off his pack, a Yorkshire Australian with a retained Yorkshire accent after 20 years abroad,  and his partner who kept pretty quiet and we all walked to Keld where I allowed myself to be exploited to the tune of a cup of tea and a fruit slice at the Rukins tearoom there. (This was also the destination of a small team of DofE kids who actually spoke to us. I have noted in the past that DofE groups are usually pretty diffident about actually replying to a greeting or a question) We met them twice, in fact. They must have been doing our route, but the other way around.

And then back to Tan Hill for a pint of shandy and an hour’s drive home.

On yer actual guided walk, we stopped at Ravenseat for cuppas – some had scones and we missed Keld altogether by rejoinging the Coast to Coast path after lunch by the swimming hole at Wainwath Force where a few swimmers were swimming and leaping into the deep water and other risky stuff.

And we followed the Pennine Way back to Tan Hill – noting the most pointless gate in Yorkshire. Well done to the Yorkshire dales National Park Authority for transporting a gate, concrete, and men to Lad Gill where there’s a little footbridge over a very small and shallow beck. Here, they have installed a gate complete with a sign saying “Please Close The Gate”. There is nothing, however, to prevent stock, or anything else from passing either side of this gate. Whoever planned it, authorised it and built it and wasted all that money in times of austerity, needs their heads seeing to and really, if there was any justice at all, should now be reprting to their local job centre to be sanctioned. The feckers.

Anyway, I think people generally enjoyed the walk. I enjoyed both walks, and so did LTD. There’s a map below for anybody inclined to give it a go. This shows the route not going to Keld. But if you want to, you can.