Reflecting on the last year, we’ve had some fantastic trips around the UK, but I realised as I did some housekeeping on my blog at the start of the year that we’ve been neglecting the Yorkshire Dales. Our local national park, I think we’re guilty (as many are) of forgetting about places on our doorstep. With the lovely weather we’ve had so far in March we’ve made an effort to get out in the Dales more, with walks up Buckden Pike and to the Watercut finally ticked off the list.
I had a week off in mid-March and while most of it was spent mooching around Fountains Abbey with Coal working on his reactivity, the penultimate day was forecast to be too lovely to pass up the opportunity to tick off another walk in the Dales. Having visited Aysgarth Falls to do a shorter walk around Freeholders Wood a few years ago, we’d noticed finger posts pointing the way to Bolton Castle a few miles away and said we’d have to come back to do the longer walk. It might have taken five years, but we finally made it…
We followed a circular route of around 7 miles from the Welcome to Yorkshire website, which is slightly longer than some of the other routes online, but which comes back over the moor for lovely views. There’s plentiful pay & display parking at the National Park Centre for Aysgarth Falls, and the route starts off by heading past the middle and lower falls. You can detour to visit the upper falls at the start or end of your walk if you want to visit them: the official viewpoint has an honesty box for donations, but really the better view is from the bridge you drive over to get to the car park (take care of traffic as there’s no pavement).
Initially the route takes you through the woods above the river. You can detour to the viewing platforms above the middle and lower falls, although really the view from these isn’t as good as other waterfalls in the Dales like Hardraw Force. To get the best view of the lower falls, it’s possible to take a narrow trail which climbs steeply down to the river. Care is needed and you might need hands as well as feet, but it’s a short clamber and shouldn’t pose too many difficulties as long as you exercise caution.
From Aysgarth it’s an easy stroll through fields – don’t get distracted by Bolton Castle in the distance and make a beeline for it like we did, as we ended up taking the wrong path and having to back track a short way. Mostly the fields were mercifully dry (aside from one rather muddy track as we left the fields), then it was a short uphill walk on a quiet road to Bolton Castle and the village. This is the main bit of uphill on the route and while it’s pretty gentle and not far at all, it definitely made me realise how unfit I am after a Winter of no hiking and too many sticky toffee puddings!
Bolton Castle was built in the 14th century and remains in private ownership today. Mary Queen of Scots is said to have been imprisoned here for six months, and made a brief escape attempt to Leyburn where she supposedly lost her shawl on the way (hence how the Leyburn Shawl got its name). Visitors can explore the castle, although unfortunately it isn’t dog friendly, so we didn’t do more than peer over the walls and take some photos. We did however very much enjoy watching their Wild Boar, who live in an enclosure behind the car park, pottering around in the sunshine. They had some tiny piglets who were absolutely adorable.
The walk continues onto the moor behind the castle, with sweeping views over Wensleydale and the surrounding moors. I expect it’s been pretty bleak up here all Winter but there was a definite feeling of Spring in the air, and the almost constant calls of the lapwings and curlews felt like a sure sign that warmer weather is just around the corner.
The drop back down to the start is very gradual, starting with a descent into the quiet village of Carperby, then it’s not far at all back to the car park. This part of the walk uses field paths and passes through many step stiles in dry stone walls, for very quintessentially Yorkshire Dales scenery which reminded us how lucky we are to live here. Next stop was the car park, which was a lot busier than it had been when we arrived first thing!
Dog friendly rating: 3/5. This is a lovely dog walk, with an opportunity for dogs to have a paddle if you drop down to the river, and actually pretty quiet when you’re away from the waterfalls. We kept our dogs on leads throughout this walk as either we were in fields with sheep (especially important to keep your dogs on leads as we approach lambing time) or on the moor with ground nesting birds. There’s a small stream about half way around which both of ours had a drink from, and another stream later on which had completely dried up. This walk does have plenty of stiles, however for the most part they are the easily manageable step stiles built into dry stone walls, with just one where some help might be needed for less athletically minded dogs.
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