Pen-y-Ghent Fell Race

Our original itinerary for this trip involved driving the 6 hours from Edinburgh to Oxford in one go arriving home on the Saturday and having Sunday as a recovery day. However, the pull of the Yorkshire Dales was too much for Andy especially after surfing the net and finding a fell race beginning at Horton-in-Ribblesdale!

With the fell race commencing at 3pm we had plenty of time to leave the M6 early and traverse through the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Now the UK road system has motorways (2, 3, 4,,5...lane carriageways with 115kph speed limit) , A roads (mostly wide straightish single carriageways with 95kph speed limit), B roads (single carriageway usually windy passing through villages with 60kph speed limit). I was at one point a little concerned when Andy said we'd be going down a little laneway (translation smaller than a B road). Although this little laneway was sealed, it took us straight through a farmers field with the horses and sheep roaming everywhere! Andy kept insisting that google map had suggested the route...I'm not convinced!

After 3 hours of driving with the final section through some delightful rolling hills and villages, we arrived on the outskirts of Horton-in-Ribblesdale only to be stopped for the Gala parade - it was making it's way down the main street to the Gala Field. Turns out that the fell race was part of Gala Day (local fete), a real bonus for the girls and I :)

One of the main attractions of this area is the 3 Peaks Walk, a marathon summiting Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside hills. Andy's 6 mile fell race luckily only summited the Pen-y-ghent (seen in background of adjacent photo) a mere 450m climb. While Andy was getting ready for his race, the girls watch Mr Bubbles's Magic Show. At one point in the show, the girls helped Mr Bubbles with his magic ball trick earning a packet of lollies each which they were quite happy with. Mr Bubbles finished his show by magicing a real rabbit, which the children all loved.

A short time later Andy's race began so we had just over an hour to entertain ourselves. Fire engine was our first port of call. Ella climbed into the back while Katy was happy observing from the outside. We did a loop of the stalls - not much there before reaching the bouncy castle. Katy was keen to go on but was put off by the number of larger children, so ended up watching from the sidelines (again).

After Ella's time was up, we found some alpacas to pat before spotting the playground. As far as playgrounds this one ranks pretty highly as for spectacular backdrops. Although the grass needed mowing, the range of play equipment was great too.Katy was most proud of herself as she managed to master the flying fox on her own. From my vantage point I watched the first runners descending the final hill so we left the playground to cheer them in at the finish line. Suitably placed adjacent to the finish line, the bouncy castle was clear of big kids, so we had enough time for one more go before Andy came in. He just missed out on breaking the hour, looked shattered but happy. You can read his race report here.

We continued our journey to the south edge of the dales to the small village of Long Preston, where our B&B was located. From the nice-but-impersonal edinburgh apartment which last night seemed like the place to party (being on the ground floor was not ideal as we were kept up until well after midnight including some 'funny' adult guys playing knock and run on our window!!) this B&B was a complete contrast.

Elaine, the owner,  instantly engaged with the girls explaining she'd been eagerly awaiting their arrival! She directed them to the box of toys she'd retrieved from the cupboard and soon the three of them were playing connect 4 and busy bees before heading out into the garden for some skipping and hula hoop fun! It was just lovely.