Sunday 7th April 2024 – Spofforth.
The ride to Wetherby was looking quite miserable with rain coming down onto the coach’s windscreen. The walk was looking more like last months but by the time we got to the starting point in the village of Spofforth the sun was out but a very blustery wind.
Walking through the village it was decided that the walkers should have a look at the ruins of Spofforth Castle (and a photo opportunity). The walk out of the village and across open fields started off a bit wet under foot, after crossing a few fields it started to get a bit muddy. Then we were looking at a lot of standing water which we managed to negotiate without too many people getting their feet wet. The ground started to rise in front of us and a rabbit ran off into the hedge row and a hare looked at these mad humans before lopping off into a large patch of Gorse. Red Kites followed the group to a well-earned coffee break at this point we thought the ground underfoot couldn’t get any worse how wrong we were. Walking round the back of Plompton Hall the mud was very bad and difficult to keep ones footing with two of the group slipping and ending up in the mud. Walking down a farm track Graham pointed out four Dear crossing open fields, Lunch stop was at a very nice cafe on the side of the river Nidd where we encounted the first of the very sort showers. After lunch we continued into Knaresborough where people could go to the pub for a well-earned drink or if not then a cup of tea meeting back at the coach for the ride home.
- Walk leader – Dave Tyson.
- Number of walkers – 28 and 3 non-walkers.
- Distance – 7.3 miles.
PS – The four people who went to the pub got soaked to the skin walking back to the coach while the rest of us were already on the coach nice and dry.
