North Yorkshire

Email for June 22:

We were waited on this morning by Claire, the home owner. We declined the full English so she wouldn't have to come early and cook. But she served us granola, yogurt, fruit, toast, etc. This really is a lovely home and we seem to have it to ourselves again. (For the record, the only B&B we booked OFF AirBNB was the only one we had problems with!)

Then we were off to explore again. We started in Knaresborough which is the next town over. I really loved it there. It was a really cute town built around a river and an old viaduct. We went to Mother Shipton's cave which claims to be the oldest tourist location in England. The main thing to see is the cave in which Mother Shipton was born and the nearby spring-fed falls which turns anything into stone. Mother Shipton was a famous prophetess in England that prophesied the London Fire among other things. The falls was crazy. It's just a giant sheet of stone under which they hang things. The spring water is so full of calcite, it turns anything into stone in just about 3 months. The whole place was quite bizarre and kitschy, but it was cool seeing the falls and the things turned into stone. Also, they own one whole side of the river, so we walked all up one side of the river in Knaresborough, left the attraction at the other side of town, crossed over the bridge, and walked all the way back through town on the other side. It was beautiful.

From there, we headed to Fountains Abbey, which is an old 12th century monastic cathedral that is now a ruins with grass all through it. This was one of my favorite places when we came in 2005. It was beautiful this time as well. We walked all around. Tom took many pictures. And we walked around Studley Royal which is the "water park" (as they call it, but it means very rectangular ponds with small stair step waterfalls) next to Fountains Abbey.

After Fountains Abbey, we drove just about twenty minutes away to a place called Brimham Rocks. This place was AMAZING! It was these amazing geologic structures all through a big park made of a rock called gritstone and we were completely free to just run and climb all over them. We scrambled up several of them, and Tom climbed up some of the taller ones. It was awesome! This is definitely on our list to take our kids to when we come back. It's known for a stone called "The idol" that is a giant bulge on top of just a tiny piece left under it, but the giant formations were just as amazing. There were natural caves, giant playgrounds, and sweeping views of Yorkshire.

After we were done playing and climbing, we headed to the original Betty's café, which is actually right in Harrogate (not York!) and traditional afternoon tea as Betty's is famous for (I got hot chocolate with mine and Tom got the ginger lemongrass herbal tea). And now we're back in our empty mansion again after another great day!

Lake District and Malham Cove

Email from June 21:

The breakfast at the Aphrodite (the hotel we ended up at) was amazing. Tom got a really fancy version of the traditional full English breakfast and I had eggs on toast on top of all the cereal, fruit, pastries, yogurt, etc that they had. (They even had champagne for breakfast!) After we ate and checked out, we took a hike up to the hill above Windermere called Orrest Head. It was a beautiful overview of the whole area.

After this hike, we drove up to Grasmere to see Dove Cottage, Stock Lane, and this tiny and amazing (world famous) Grasmere Gingerbread kitchen. It's so old and original, the store only fits two people and they pretty much only sell their gingerbread in 6 piece and 12 piece bundles.

We drove out of the Lake District and drove on our absolute favorite drive in all of the UK so far to Malham Cove. The road was small, but high up with open fields to either side and amazing views in every direction. We're not entirely sure where it was but it wound through Giggleswick, sort of side passed Settle to Langcliffe where we turned on the tiny Main Street in Langcliffe which turned into Henside Lane and Cove Rd and led us right to Malham Cove. (We followed the satnav's directions, and the way it took us in to Malham was a far more spectacular drive than the way it took us out. We looked at the map later to figure out which way we went in, which is why we're recording the streets here, so if we ever go there again we know which way to go.) It was down a single lane road with piled stone or shubbery fences through sheep pastures. The terrain was typical green rolling hills but strewn about with rocky outcroppings. Then there were the old stone fences separating the sheep pastures. We were going up and down steep hills and sharp curves on this tiny little road.

Malham Cove is a big limestone sheer cliff. We walked up to it and then hiked up to the top. The top is called Limestone Pavement - the slightly acidic rain water has cut through the softer veins in the stone at the top of the cliff to look like stones with big ravines between them. It was a very rippley stone formation. It was very cool, though somewhat difficult to walk on because it was so uneven. (This is where Hermione and Harry camp on the cliff in the Harry Potter 7 film.)

We drove to Harrogate to our B&B. Again, no one answered, so we called and left a message and went to dinner (it was only 6pm this time at least). When we got back at 7:30, she was here and waiting for us after getting our message and since she doesn't actually live here and no one else was booked, we have the entire home to ourselves! And it's gorgeous! And it was pretty cheap because we have to share the bathroom with other guests (which tonight, is NO ONE!). For dinner, we went to Harrogate town centre and ended up on an Italian restaurant road. There were like 10 Italian restaurants, it was hard to choose! My pumpkin ravioli with brown butter sage sauce was really, really good. Now we're enjoying our empty home and after two hikes, we're pretty tired!

Crisscrossing Wales

Email from June 20:

I’m typing this from the entryway of our Lake District house. We arrived here about 8:45pm and there is no answer at either of the bells, knocking, or calling any of the phone numbers. We did see some guests go in, but after going in with them and looking around and knocking on the owners’ door, the guests were nervous we weren’t supposed to be there and hinted that we should go back into the entryway. I’m sure all will be sorted out eventually, but until then, I will utilize the time to write the events of the day.

We set out this morning not entirely knowing where we were going. We knew we wanted to go to Devil’s Bridge and we knew we needed to make it up to the Lake District, and Roy had given us a few stretches of highway we should drive through Wales, so we spent the day zig-zagging through Wales. We passed Tintern Abbey, numerous castle ruins, and a lot of gorgeous rolling hills and sheep grazing. And in West Wales there were some pretty think evergreen forests. At times it felt like we were driving to the beach house or through Snoqualmie Pass. It was beautiful. We drove through Brecon Beacons national park and then over to Devil’s Bridge. Devil’s Bridge is an 11th century bridge that was built over a very steep crevice in the wall where the river runs through. That bridge is impressive enough, but they actually have built two more on top of it, one in the the 1700s, and the top one around 1900, and because it’s so steep, they never ripped up the old ones. It was a cool little area and the violent river has really carved down deeper in the rock under them.

From there we headed North again and stopped first at Powis Castle which was built in 1277 (around the same time as Caerphilly), but was inhabited until the early 1900s, so instead of being a ruins, it’s still a very stately home with all the furnishings and amazing manicured gardens. There were even a couple peacocks strutting around in the courtyard. It was a little treasure we walked into not knowing about it beforehand.

Then we stopped in Llangollen at the aquaduct we had originally planned to boat over and discovered we could actually walk across it. So we did. It was really cool and a few longboats crossed over it while we were there as well.

From there we decided to go straight to the house in Windermere so we wouldn’t get here too late. Alas, it seems we actually did (around 8:45pm).

I know you're all dying to know what happened. Well, around 9:45, I walked to the little hotel next door. She said that the people that run our little B&B are horrible (she called them "the gruesome twosome"), they cut off check in at 8:30, and they probably won't refund the money. She said it would be tough to find a room this time of night in the Lake District in the summertime, but she would call her friend who is the front desk person at a hotel down the road (she was full). He had a room available, and she talked him down in price so, although it's a bit more expensive than we've been paying everywhere else, we now have a lovely room with a private hot tub, spa bath, a pool, and a fancy breakfast in the morning. The guy here said our credit card may refund the money if they won't, so we'll try that. But if not, oh well. Stuff happens. And this place is lovely!

Welsh Sunday Dinner

Email for June 19:

We made some toast and had some muesli for breakfast and then we popped off to Caerphilly for 9am Church. The meetings were good. I was shocked at how people had actually prepared for the lesson. They had a ward Facebook page where the information was shared for RS and Sunday school and they actually read the reading for the classes. They even talked about how the youth are doing assignments and following up by sharing at the beginning of class each week (if we could only get our youth to do that as well!). After the meetings, the Forwards caught up with all their old friends from the Caerphilly ward and Tom and I chatted with whomever approached, though Jenny and Sarah (her friend from last night) were pretty good to not leave us (even though we insisted we were fine on our own).

After about an hour, we followed the Forwards to Jan's house (Steve's sister that came with us yesterday). The whole family was there: Jan and Roy's son and daughter who each have a spouse and a son. Grand-dad was there and us and the Forwards. Jan made us a proper English Sunday roast dinner with pork, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and roast vegetables with gravy poured over the whole of it (they serve the plates, you don't dish yourself... they just presented us with a completely piled plate) with mint sauce and applesauce for us to apply as desired. After finishing our large dinner, it was Teddy's first birthday (one of Jan and Roy's grandsons), so we ate chocolate cake with cream poured over it. Jan also served fruit salad and strawberry trifle, so we had to have those as well. After talking for a bit, the Rocky Road came out, which was sort of like a chocolate fudge with bits of biscuits and marshmallows and dried fruits and other things mixed in. It was really good. Moral of the story: we ate well and now we're stuffed.

We had a fabulous time talking to all of them. Jan was a nurse and was telling me all sorts of stories of her experiences. Then they all started talking politics. It was the most cordial, fact-based political discussion I've ever heard. Basically, it sounded as if they weren't sure whether to vote in or out of the EU this week, so they were going over the facts. It sounded as if they were leaning IN, but they're still not sure. The whole family is the nicest, greatest people. We had some great conversations about the gospel and the world and everything else. Jan pulled out our smoked salmon at this point for everyone to try. Joshua was the only kid that would try it ("it's not bad...it's a bit strange") but he went back for some more. Jan and Roy and Steve all quite enjoyed it as well as Grand-dad. Jenny said "I don't like fish, but this is actually alright." So there you have it.

We took pictures (Ethan took the picture of all of us so he's not in it and that's why it's pretty hilarious because he also never told anyone when he was going to take it) and said our farewells. Tom and I got back to Gwenno's just after 7pm. We've thrown our laundry in so we can hang it up tonight to dry before we leave in the morning, then it's off to the lake district tomorrow.