Another week in lockdown, so I thought I’d share one of my favourite local walks. Starting from the village of Reeth, take a gentle stroll along the river Swale to the pretty village of Healaugh.
This is a relatively short and gentle walk, with a similar route available on Where2Walk. This route goes a bit further but if you want a slightly shorter walk you can take the footpath away from the river up to Healaugh. The shorter walk is around three miles and takes us around an hour and a half.
You can park on the village green in Reeth (please put some money in the honesty box for parking!) and make your way to the start of the walk. There is a section of the walk along the river so make sure they are on a lead if they are like Merry and liable to jump in! The riverside section is in parts fenced off so you can let your dog off the lead but please make sure that they are on a lead when you go through fields with live stock. There are also lots of stiles on this walk, including a few which made Merry realise he needed to lose a few Christmas pounds…
Reeth is one of my favourites places in the Dales and I would definitely recommend it as a place to stay if you are planning to visit the Dales. It is the starting point for lots of walks and there are plenty of shops and places to eat.
I am tempted to give this walk full marks for dog friendliness just because I love it so much – BUT there are lots of stiles which might be tricky for bigger dogs, and there are quite a few sections where you need to put your dog on a lead. However, this walk is pretty much all off road, there is the opportunity for dogs to stretch their legs off the lead AND to call in somewhere for cake afterwards. What more could you want?! So overall this walk gets a dog friendly rating of 3.5/5.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog you can subscribe below for weekly walking updates:
