Barnard Castle

We’ve got visitors again! We had arranged to meet Linda’s parents in Pateley Bridge, a small town about an hour and a half away from our site in Barnard Castle. Once there we said our hello’s and headed into the town where we had a mooch around, we popped to a picture shop where the parents bought a lovely print of a Warfedale scene by a local artist, we also had an ice cream each from a little sweet shop. Then after putting the painting in the car we headed down the riverside footpath where we spotted a sign for a pub. Never one to turn down a beer garden, Dad said lets go sample the ale, and no-one disagreed. The Harefield Hall turned out to be quite a grand hotel which looked like it was in the throws of a renovation; we sat out the front under one of the many parasols and enjoyed a drink before heading back to the town and going for a sit in the park enjoying the sun. We then headed on to Knaresborough which is where Mum and Dad were staying, it is a lovely scenic town built high on the banks of the river Nidd, which is the same river we were walking alongside earlier. This much further down the river is much wider, and the town has an impressive viaduct to show for it as well as some very steep streets which lead up to the ruins of the large castle. Later on in the afternoon we went out to a pub in Whixley which has an extremely popular carvery, and we could see why. Yum.

Rain, rain, rain the next day so we moped around in the morning wandering what to do. In the afternoon we headed up to Bishop Aukland, a larger town about 15 miles up the road from us. Our brief impression of Bishop Aukland wasn’t good, it seemed to be a town in decline, and there wasn’t much to see (this might not have been helped by the foul weather), we bought a few necessities, including a new bed for the dog, and headed back. In the afternoon we headed out to the Tan Hill Inn, which sat on the bleak Pennine moorland at 1,732ft claims to be the highest pub in Great Britain, after going for a short walk along the Pennine Way we found ourselves a nice corner in the pub where we settled into the sofas and had a couple of drinks!


The weather was better the next day so we headed to Hamsterley Forest, a large Forestry Commission operation with a visitor centre, forest drive and multiple car parks. Phil took his bike and rode around 10 miles on the black XC route, it was a good ride, and for once was more deserved of the ‘black’ tag, some of the sections were worth repeating a few times, and even some of the technical climbs were good fun. Meanwhile Linda followed the 4.5 mile Orange walking route with the dogs. It was a little disappointing with very few viewpoints (unlike other forest walks she has done), and the track joined the mtb routes in various places without any warning for the walkers. Back at the very busy car park we had our lunch on a tucked away picnic bench before heading back.
On the way home we stopped off at the English Heritage owned Barnard Castle which towers above the river Tees on the edge of the town of the same name. It was founded in the 12th century and was later developed at numerous times before numerous battles and the use of its stone on nearby Raby castle left it ruined. We had a walk around the ruins of the castle in the sun and enjoyed the views down the Tees valley, we also explored the various chambers and rooms you can go in Before calling it a day and heading home.



This morning the caravan repair man was due to arrive to repair our cracked shower tray, we had to hang around waiting for him and the job took him a couple of hours as we had to wait for the foam he had used to set. He suggested that Yarm, where we were going to meet Linda’s Mum and Dad later was not as good as Northallerton. So when they rang to say they had arrived at Yarm and couldn’t find any parking longer than an hour we suggested Northallerton. We left an hour later, by which time the parents had done Yarm (seen it, got the T shirt) and were waiting for us in the Northallerton Long stay car park! While we were with them we had a good walk around Northallerton, sampled the beer in two pubs, as well as checking out the beer gardens in several others. Then we had to say our goodbyes and head our separate ways to forage for our tea!


We had planned to go to the Appleby horse fair today to witness the Pikeys doing their dodgy deals, but in the end we both decided against it as we’d seen enough of them on the side of the local roads, so we had a lazy morning before deciding to head out to the local reservoirs we had seen a few days before. It was only a few miles up the road and we found ourselves in a deserted car park next to Blackton Reservoir, we had a walk over the dam and ate our lunch on a deserted (again) picnic table. We continued our walk and came across a sluice gate which had a very powerful volume of water rushing through it and we could see it pushing up out of the middle of the reservoir below us, as the water rushed up to the surface it looked like a giant boil in the middle of the reservoir! We carried on up the hill hoping to pick up the Pennine Way where we would be able to see the other reservoirs on the other side of the valley, it wasn’t until we were chased by a constantly barking little farm dog and various groups of sheep that we thought we might be on the wrong track! (It wasn’t until later. when I looked at the OS map that I realised we were at the wrong reservoir! We had forgotten the Ipaq, which we use for GPS and OS mapping.) We headed back via an alternative route to avoid the yapping little mutt before jumping in Tonks and heading home


We have now moved to the next Camping and Caravan Certificated Site, but the journey was a little fraught because the description in the book bore no resemblance to the roads we were driving on, at one point we had to stop in a farm entrance and phone for directions. Phil had to do a quick bit of caravan reversing at the side of the main road so that we could turn round and get back on track. Arriving at Greencarts Farm we were welcomed by the farm dog, Bracken, as well as the very laid back owner. He told us to pitch anywhere we liked in the huge unmowed field. There were a few tents and 5 vans already on site in the long grass, but the field was so big there was plenty of room. After some umming and arring, and some help from our neighbour with our electric hookup extenson we ended up pitching somewhere in the middle of the field looking at the great view!