Burnsall & Linton

Sunday, 21st August
11.6km (7 miles) - 2hr 40min
OL10 - Yorkshire Dales (Southern Area)

My third walk of the week (unless you count Sunday as the start of a new week !) and a walk we had promised to do a few months back but had abandoned because of the weather.  However, today was perfect walking weather - hot enough for a t-shirt, but not overwhelming - the temperature in the high teens.
I suppose one of the tips to give when trying to park in Burnsall is to arrive early.  Even at 10:30 on a Sunday morning all the "free" spaces had been taken, the riverside car park was nearly full and people were starting to arrive at the field, over the bridge.  It was certainly a differend story when we got back some three hours later when the place was cram-packed !

This is an old favourite of mine and is, to all extent and purposes, a gentle stroll rather then a walk. However, what it may lack in walking machismo it makes up for in the glory of its surroundings ! The first section is easy enough - find the river Wharfe and walk along it's banks crossing the river at the suspension bridge just North of Burnsall.  I couldn't be easier and if you feel yourself getting wet, then you've gone off course !  Along the bank we grabbed our first cache of the day at "Harry's Hollow" - just above Loup Scar where people were throwing themselves off the cliff into the river (a pastime I understand is called "tombstoning").

The river was pretty high which meant that the stepping stones across the Wharfe, just below Linton Church were not available, so we popped round the corner to cross the bridge over Linton Falls before climbing up a dropping into the village of Linton itself.

Linton is reknowned as a pretty village and it was nice to sit and have lunch overlooking the stream, although we did have guests in the shape of about twenty ducks hoping a crumb or two might fall their way !

After lunch the walk climbs up a gentle incline to join Thorpe Lane and drops into the hamlet which, reputedly, was missed by marauding Scots and became a refuge whenever the raiders from North of the Border were in the area !
The final section climbs out of Thorpe and cuts through some fields before the final stretch which can onlybe described as "stile practice" - there must be 10 or 12 stiles to negotiated before arriving back in the village and a welcome coffee at the Wharfe View Tea Rooms.

A delightful walk, although both Gill and I commented on it's seeming brevity !  Grabbed a couple of caches on the way round and took a few photographs, although the light wasn't that good.