Today we made the bold decision to skip breakfast at the hotel and go to a nearby café.  It was a poor choice. The coffee was adequate (far more troubling when on a trip than at home) and the yogurt parfait was… ok. 

I recognize that I do talk about food a great deal when we travel.  It is one of the things we truly enjoy about traveling so you are destined to hear about the poor, adequate, good and amazing meals and snacks that we (mostly) enjoy.

Another day and another walk to the rental car lot. They had kindly agreed to let us park the car there overnight. This was much appreciated as overnight parking typically runs about $50 Canadian and is not likely to be close to our hotel as it islocated in the pedestrian center of York.

Rick was much more comfortable driving on day two, and I was less likely to grab the arm on the door with a loud intake of breath.

Our first stop was Harrogate. Our primary goals were to stop at Betty’s Café and Tea Room and hopefully pop into Yarn etc. a well-regarded yarn shop specializing in local woollen yarns.

Harrogate is a lovely place – lots of green parks and neighbourhoods that reminded me of Shaughnessy, though much, much larger. Tree lined streets and beautiful, well-kept homes seemed to be the norm there.

Betty’s Café is huge. There were multiple tea rooms across several levels. The rooms were beautifully appointed and the service was impeccable. The line was quite long when we first drove by, though by the time we had parked and walked back to join the queue it was considerably shorter.

In a surprisingly short time, we were seated at a comfortable table by the window where we could watch people come and go in the line while enjoying our coffee and a trademarked  “Fat Rascal” scone made with copious amounts of dried fruit and little faces consisting of an almond mouth and glacee cherry eyes.

One regular Fat Rascal is 700 calories. The chocolate and caramel “Gooey Rascal” is only 465 calories.  After several futile searches to try and understand why this was the case, I could only conclude that although the gooey version has more base calories, it not likely to require the addition of the butter (in generous quantities) that would significantly up the calorie count for the original.  Whatever the case, we consumed those delicious calories with happy abandon, agreeing that a Fat Rascal was both delicious and filling.

Reviewing our plan for the drive, we decided to skip the yarn shop and head to directly to Grassington. The little village is commonly considered one of the prettiest in The Dales. This is a strong recommendation as we passed through a rather large number of tiny villages throughout the day. Ultimately we agreed that it was indeed the prettiest, even under stormy skies.

We also passed by a rather strange sight, a field with a large collection of white “bubbles”.  That is how the 37 white spheres are best described.  With a little research, Rick discovered that this is the site of RAF Menwith Hill. The white bubbles are weatherproof structures (radomes) designed to shield and protect highly sensitive satellite tracking equipment from the elements and public view.  “It is widely considered one of the largest and most important electronic monitoring and intelligence-gathering stations in the world.” Although the base is owned by the UK, it is jointly operated with the US.  I know nothing more than this.

It wasn’t too long before we arrived in Grassington. It is also famous as the primary location for the current BBC version of All Creatures Great and Small. (Although there is a bit of a pattern developing, I did not know this was the case until long after planning the itinerary.)

The village has embraced its alternate identity as Darrowby, the fictional home of James Herriot. Many shops and restaurants are named after people and locations from the stories; this has been done with a degree of subtlety and class.

While walking through the main square we tripped on a small bottle shop and decided to purchase some food to make our own picnic.  This was a very brave decision on a day where the weather shifted from beautiful sunlight to high winds and driving rain in mere minutes. We came away with a block of local Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese, made famous by the Wallace and Gromit series of animated shows.  Rick chose a seedy sourdough loaf to go with the cheese (Wallace preferred crackers btw) and I chose a small pork pie with apple and Wensleydale as the feature ingredients.

When I return home, it is my goal to make some meat pies using hot water crust pastry which is much thicker and sturdier than the kind we typically use.  This allows the pies to be built up to heights we would not typically see. The pie was absolutely delicious by the way – no regrets.

Braving the torrential rain on our return to the car park, we made the hard decision to forego the visit to Malham Cove. The naturally occurring limestone cliff forms the shape of an amphitheatre and affords a lovely view for those willing to walk the path in and climb the 400 stope steps to its full 80m height. This ended up being an excellent decision. Not only were we inadequately equipped for the weather, this stop would have added at least an hour to our journey, making us hard pressed to return the car at the intended time.

The next hour or so consisted of a drive along narrow single lane roads, with dry rock walls on both sides.  Small pullouts were provided from time to time but it was a challenge to navigate the cautious passing of an oncoming vehicle. In spite of this, the scenery and the views were absolutely breathtaking.  Stunning. Spectacular.

The fields, that often appear impossibly green in the TV series are, in fact, exactly that shade of green. The entire world seems to have been placed under a camera filter.  Even with the nip and tuck driving, I felt my entire body relaxing at the sight of this beautiful part of the world.

Masses of sheep dotted the hillsides, content to graze in the rain.  It took me a bit to realize that these sheep were different form the ones I was accustomed to seeing… they had tails! And by this, I mean long, full, ground-sweeping tails. They looked quite strange at first. And then I realized that of course they did! Those wee lamb tails we are accustomed to are docked, typically between 1 and 7 days old. There are reasons why docking has been done (health and hygiene). Not being a farmer, I make no moral judgment on the matter. Unable to get close enough to an actual sheep to get a tail photo – I have borrowed this one from the internet.

When we arrived at the Viaduct, the rain was torrential and the wind was enough to rock the car from time to time. We waited it out, enjoying our picnic lunch in the car.  I was really wishing for a hot tea or coffee as a beverage accompaniment, but such is life. 

Our next stop was the Ribblehead Viaduct. The bridge is 400m long, 32m high and consists of 24 arches. It took 5 years to construct the bridge.  One hundred builders lost their lives in the process. This beautiful structure is still in use today.  (Looking exactly like something that would have appeared in a Harry Potter movie, I was quite surprised to discover it has not.)

I walked the path to the base of the bridge as soon as the rain slowed. I took far too many photos but managed to narrow them down to just a few. Rick had a snooze in the car. Fair enough after so much driving.

The road back was wider though rather slow due to construction. The rain broke along the way, revealing a double rainbow. What a beautiful way to complete our drive!

Having returned the car with a bit of time to spare, we returned to York city centre. We had no real plans for dinner and ended up at The Ivy. This destination was chosen due to the promise of a duck salad; vegetables are just not so much a thing in this part of the world. The duck salad was a bit disappointing – delicious duck but only a few small scraps of anything that could be deemed fruit or vegetable. Rick loved his lobster linguine. It did look delicious. 

We strolled back to our room, later than planned, know that we needed to pack for departure and a train to Bath the next day. Our adventures continue, in an entirely different setting.