Rambling around Grassington

With the day free for whatever we liked, we decided to give our walking boots an airing and head out into the countryside for a refreshing walk. It's been some time since we visited the pleasant countryside over the border into Yorkshire, so we set off up the A59 towards Skipton, continuing on into limestone country up to Grassington.

The walk we'd planned covered around 5 miles, firstly over a rather bleak landscape of limestone, before passing through a wood down to the River Wharfe. The last leg back followed the riverside path, where Carole was hoping to perhaps see a kingfisher.

At first the weather was overcast, and the rocky, barren landscape contained very little colour, so converting the pics I took to black & white seemed a good option. By the time we were walking through the trees, the rain caught up with us, although there were patches of sunlight too which gave us some encouragement.

By the time we reached the river, the sun was out and the colour returned to the landscape. It was the perfect time to stop for lunch. There were still plenty of darker clouds in the sky throughout the rest of the afternoon though, although we did manage to stay dry. The weather wasn't good enough for the kingfishers though, although we did pick out another, rather larger bird who is also an expert fisher too!