Yorkshire Dales and more of York

Thursday 5th October

Suffering some frustration at the moment. Telstra sent an SMS to say they think the BigPond Account has been compromised and they have turned the emails off, temporarily. That was 3 days again and have heard nothing since and cannot get or send emails. Have tried to contact them but can't get through. Quite concerned as it might affect some of our future bookings and not sure what to do. The problem occurred when we connected through Youth Hostels Network who use Sky Cloud, which according to the phone and computer, is not secured. Everything else works well but no emails, in or out.

However, we have had a terrific day today despite Merilyn's on going cough - she assures me she is getting better - up to 75% she says, but I am not so sure. The weather was sunny for most of the day with a strong cold wind - a good day for being in the car. After about an hours drive we were up in the Yorkshire Dales National Park - similar to the North Yorkshire Moors Park but in places even more isolated. Characterised by neat, fairly small, rock walled fields on the sides of steep hills with small stone barns everywhere which apparently hold feed for the winter months when the snow comes. The hilltops are covered with bracken and rocky outcrops which can be quite extensive. Many of the towns had large cobbled Market Squares where sheep markets have been held for hundred of years. Now they are mostly used as car parks and occasionally for craft and community markets. We passed the highest pub in Britain and turned down a small road which I had read about. It took us down a very steep, very narrow road through, awesome and picturesque country to a valley where we drove through farms, literally between the buildings and around machinery and also crossed the mid-point of the Coast to Coast walk. It was inspiring country to see and we wondered how on earth people could live in such isolated places. Home for a 'heat it up in the microwave' tea

A Dales Village

 

and then time struggling with the e-mail problem - just a little bit grumpy, but very happy with yet another great day.

Friday 6th October

Cough still there but not as much. Sunny, riverside walk into the City and then a walk along the wall, past the Minster and down to the Eastern or Castle end of the city. Not much of the castle left but we did climb Clifford's Tower which had been the main defensive fort for the castle -Merilyn pleased to have again managed a climb successfully - we'll have her up the Eureka Tower when we get home! Some good views from the Tower of the City and distant hills.

On the castle site were built in the 1700's a Woman's Prison, a Debtors Prison and an administration building. The two prisons have now been linked and turned into the Castle Museum which houses many of the items collected by an eccentric doctor in the 1900's who used to take items of interest from his patients in lieu of payment. Many other items have even a been donated over the years and it has all been presented in reconstructed rooms and buildings and even a street of shops and homes. It was extremely interesting and took us all afternoon to see. There was quite an emphasis on the sweets industry which has been a major employer in York over many years - The Rowntree family being the major factory owners. Rowntrees is now owned by Nestle and would you believe produce 3.5 million Kit Kats a day! We had to have a late, quick afternoon tea (no Kit Kats for us) on our way to the Minster for Evensong, but we made it on time and once again enjoyed and appreciated the time of peace and reflection. We'll be on the road again tomorrow and will be sorry to leave York. Perhaps one of the children, or grand children, could get a job here for a year and we could visit for the summer - wouldn't that be nice.

A street in the Museum (used to be the opened roof exercise yard in the Ladies prison). Appropriately dressed people in the shops would provide information about the sweets industry in the 1800's, or women's corsets, or the book industry - the shop fronts actually came from York streets. Every 15 minutes it turned to night - illumination lights would go out, candles light up in windows, gas street lamps light up and dogs start barking. Bird songs would announce the coming dawn and the scene would light up again and you would hear the sound of passing horse drawn carriages and playing children - all very well done and effective.