Yucky in Yorkshire!!

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Not a good start to the day today - the weather is cold, wet and miserable and Bernie checked our emails on the iPhone first thing this morning to discover a message from our house sitter to say that the car has done the alternator AGAIN. That makes three times in 12 months!!! What a hassle for all concerned. Poor Eddie, who has been using our car and missed appointments because the Mazda broke down and poor us having to arrange payment for car repairs from o/s.

Interestingly the RACV Approved repairer Eddie that has organised says that there is a problem with some wiring behind the firewall that has caused a short that has fried the alternator. Maybe this has been an underlying, but intermittent problem for a while and the root cause of all our alternator angst??? Things may be clearer after Bernie rings the repairer later today.It's something that we will have to pursue with Mazda when we get back.

Not to be deterred by the rain, we donned our wet weather gear and carried on regardless with what we had planned to do today. First on the agenda was the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail - a fairly strenuous four and a half mile trail that boasts some of the most spectacular waterfall and oak woodland scenery in the UK. With Bernie's enthusiasm for long exposure waterfall photography we set off in the rain with our cameras and tripods.

As we walked through Swilla Glen Bernie decided to unpack his camera and set up the tripod for a photograph of the River Twiss burbling over the rocks. I was encouraged to leave my camera in its bag for the time being because my 550D is not as weatherproof as Bernie's 7D. Bernie was sure that the weather was improving and we would have better photo ops as we continued on our hike??!!

And so we reached the viewing point for the First Pecca Falls, but we couldn't see it. At this stage the Waterfalls Trail was proving to be distinctly disappointing. Fortunately, at the Pecca Twin Falls things started to pick up. These falls consist of five separate drops totaling 30 metres in all.

As the rain continued to fall we trekked onwards to Hollybush Spout and Thornton Force. Thornton Force was made famous by the artist, William Turner. It is also the most spectacular of the waterfalls plunging 14 metres over a cliff of limestone.

From Thornton Force we continued to Raven Ray and Twistleton Lane which follows the path of an old Roman road. We continued via Scar End Farm and Twistleton Hall before crossing the Chapel le Dale road at Beezley Farm. On a clear day, this point on the trail provides an excellent view of Ingleborough - one of the Yorkshire Dale's famous 'Three Peaks'. Today it was virtually invisible!! It's lucky that we saw the Three Peaks yesterday before the weather changed.

With no let up in the weather, we stopped briefly under the eave of The Falls Refreshment Centre where we tried to dry Bernie's camera off a bit. With the water droplets wiped from his lens and his camera's raincover toweled off, we trudged on to Beezley Falls, Triple Spout, Rival Falls and Snow Falls on the River Dee that flows through Baxenghyll Gorge. The trail finished with us having to walk through the village of Ingleton before we arrived back dripping wet at the car park where we had left the car. My camera and tripod weren't used because the weather did not improve. I am so glad that I carried them with me on a strenuous 8km hike!! I should have had the compact waterproof camera with me, but it was warm and dry at the B&B. D'oh.

Our next stop was the Yorkshire Dales Falconry Centre which was over near Settle about 20 minutes away from Ingleton. We had missed the 12.00 noon flying display so decided to begin with some lunch when we arrived. Bernie asked for a Cornish pasty and I requested a steak and kidney pie. With peas and gravy? we were asked. Without we said, but the lovely Yorkshire lady serving us was so taken aback that we would consider having our pasty/pie without peas and gravy that we ended up telling her to go ahead and dish them up with peas and gravy. And, of course, when our plates arrived, the peas were mushy. We're not big fans of the mushy peas, but we ate them to be polite. We were the only people in the cafe and it would have been noticed if we left our peas!!

With the 2.00pm flying display approaching the rain stopped ... finally!! We went out to the car to get our coats and cameras, paid our entry fee and made our way down to the small paddock where they fly the birds. There were just four of us for the 2.00pm flying display at which they brought out the snowy owl (like Harry Potter's Hedwig), the striated caracara and Eddie, the eagle-owl. The caracara's behaviour was so much like Gidget the Golden Retriever it was unbelievable. He was so clued into where the treats were and trying to help himself and beg for them rather than work for them ... just like our Gidget.

As we walked back up to the main building we photographed the birds of prey - the eagles, falcons, hawks and vultures. As we were leaving the ladies asked if we would be back for the 4.00pm flying display when the birds of prey are flown. We explained that we would have to give the next flying display as miss because a steam train was scheduled to cross over the Ribblehead Viaduct at 4.20pm and we were hoping to photograph it.

Back to The Station Inn at Ribblehead where we stopped in for a pint and a hot chocolate. At about ten to four, we drove down to the place I had chosen to photograph from. Bernie left the car and me there and he headed off to his chosen vantage point. We were both in position well ahead of the train's expected arrival - all we had to do was wait ... and wait ... and wait. Hmmn, 4.20pm arrived and a sprinter train appeared, but no steam train!! At 4.25pm I could see Bernie walking back towards the car. Oh dear, what's up I wondered - has the train been cancelled??

Bernie made it back to the car and was able to report that the trainspotter who had been staking out his vantage point with him had told him that the steam train left Carlisle an hour late. He knew because he had already been in Carlisle photographing the steam train there!! Now that's a rail buff.

So, we bunkered down in the car for about forty minutes and then Bernie walked back over to his vantage point with the trainspotter and another photography enthusiast who had turned up. Back in position we waited ... and waited ... and waited AGAIN!! Although the rain continued to hold off, it was awfully cold for just standing around waiting. I was standing out in the cold rather than sitting in the car because I thought it would be better if the camera was acclimatised rather than risk it fogging up taking it from the warm to the cold at 5.20pm.

At 5.25pm, just a few minutes later than expected, another train rolled around the corner and onto the Ribblehead Viaduct. WHAT AN ANTI-CLIMAX!!! It was the much anticipated steam train, but no toot, toot as it approached the station - and not a puff of smoke to be seen. I almost didn't photograph it because I thought that it must be the wrong train. Bernie assures me that it was a steam locomotive because the wheels were joined together by rods. However, without the much anticipated plume of smoke, it really just looked like any old train!!

Well, with our mission sort of accomplished we headed back into town and spent a bit of time transferring photos from the memory cards to the laptop before walking around to the local Italian restaurant. The Italian restaurant is celebrating 25 years of service this year which seems to be a pretty impressive feat in a village as small as Ingleton. We had a lovely pasta meal and when we left, our table was immediately re-filled with more diners. They were certainly doing a pretty brisk trade on a Thursday evening.

After dinner we filled in time on the iPad and the laptop until midnight when we rang Australia to arrange to pay for the car repairs. With that sorted we turned out the light to get some sleep. We had barely dozed off when my mobile rang. It was the solicitor who prepared our wills last year ringing to ask me a question about GST because he knows that I work in that area of the office. I told him that I was in England and he apologised profusely and said not to worry about it. Thank goodness, I was feeling much too sleepy to think about GST tonight ... or was it morning??!

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