The start of October was a bit weird weather wise. It felt like we were caught in limbo between summer and autumn, with the leaves starting to turn but temperatures staying at 18 degrees celsius, while the (weekend) days were resolutely grey and cloudy (although that could be a hangover from the very grey and rainy summer we’ve just had). On the eve of the very first day of October we were trying to decide where to go for a walk the next day, but the weather forecast just couldn’t settle! First it was sunny all day, then heavy rain, then foggy, and finally ‘sunny with showery spells’. With all the uncertainty we decided the safest bet was to stick to a shorter, lower level walk rather than heading up a fell.
In the end we chose an OS maps route around Smardale Nature Reserve near Kirkby Stephen. This is a lovely part of the world which is chronically overlooked as people flock to the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales – but that’s all the better for us, as it was a nice quiet walk!
Parking is free in a good sized car park near the start of the walk – there’s just a short section along the road to get to the start (where there is another parking area, reserved for blue badge holders). The walk starts off along good tracks through woodland, and is flat and level for most of the first half of the walk. After a few miles you cross the Smardale Viaduct and pass some old lime kilns before taking a (very easy to miss) turn onto the Coast to Coast route.
Once we joined the Coast to Coast the nice path sadly disappeared, being replaced with grassy (sometimes muddy) field paths, although at least the gradients stayed very gentle throughout the entire walk. You are also rewarded for the removal of said nice path with better countryside views opening up before you, with the Howgill Hills providing a lovely backdrop to an old pack horse bridge.
We quickly dropped down to the bridge to cross the river, before a short, gentle uphill stretch led us to a stile. Here we crossed the wall, to pick up a footpath running up above and parallel to the river. This path did have some very muddy sections and I was glad I’d worn boots! Overall it wasn’t too bad for the most part, but by the end of winter it might be a different story…
It’s along this fairly muddy path that you get some cracking views of Smardale Gill Viaduct, and it’s totally worth a walk to get to it. Back in its heyday more than a million tonnes of coke were ferried across here by rail every day. We were also very lucky that the sun made a (rather feeble) attempt to come out, and the on and off drizzle completely ceased. The path eventually brings you to a stile, which once crossed returns you to the path you walked down to reach the viaduct.
Dog friendly rating – 3/5. While there are sections of this walk along a woodland track, do keep the nature reserve status of the place in mind and keep dogs on leads when signs indicate to do so. We didn’t come across livestock in the open parts of the walk, but there was ‘evidence’ of cows and signs up on gates asking that dogs be kept on leads. In total we crossed three stiles, only one of which had a dog gate, but the two without were in good condition and easy enough for both of our dogs to clamber over with a bit of help and direction from us. While most of this walk follows the river, the path is up above the water and the river isn’t accessible apart from when you cross it at the halfway point, so it’s worth keeping this in mind on a hot day. Finally, there is a short section of road walking at the very start and end of the route, but this is on a very quiet road and we didn’t see any cars at all.
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