Well, wasn’t Storm Amy a sure fire sign that summer is definitely over? While North Yorkshire escaped the 100mph winds seen elsewhere in the UK we still got fairly battered by the wind. The Saturday was a write off, a day best spent inside hiding from the wind and rain, but on the Sunday the wind dropped enough in the afternoon to lure us out into the autumn sunshine. Not wanting to be tempted too high and get blown away, we played it safe with a short low level walk from Reeth: my favourite village in the Dales.
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We’re steadily working our way through the walks in our Pocket Mountains guide to the Yorkshire Dales, and this 4km offering along the river Swale has been on the radar for a while: we’ve just been saving it for the end of the beautiful weather we had all summer. An easy low level walk, there’s a similar route available online on AllTrails. A word of caution if you use AllTrails to find new routes – it is notorious for sending you down paths that don’t exist, so always use caution and common sense when out exploring.
The walk starts in Reeth, which no matter how many times I’m there never becomes less beautiful. Parking is on the village green (honesty box) and the view across the green to the shops and houses is just so charming. What elevates it to spectacular is the backdrop of Fremington Edge rising over the village: a fantastic walk but worth saving for a good weather day.
The route sets out across the village to drop down to the river which, following a rather rainy few weeks, was looking much fuller than it had over the summer. We crossed the river using the swing bridge (which Sam thoroughly enjoyed trying to make wobble as we walked over it, as per) to pick up a riverside path with good views across to Harkerside and back towards Calva Hill (which you can visit on a walk around Reeth Low Moor). The swing bridge is very new and shiny, having been replaced in the early two thousands after the original was washed away in floods in 2000.
We went through a gate into a field here: I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t have gone through it and we should’ve stuck closer to the river, as getting out of the field nearly entailed getting wet feet when crossing a flooded ditch. Who knows! Luckily the water wasn’t too deep and we managed to jump across without landing in it. A good thing about the walk being nearly completely flat was that we still had enough energy in our legs to spring over!
At this point the route picks up the Swale Trail, a bridlepath which runs from Reeth all the way to Keld – although we were only using it to get back to Reeth via the neigbouring village of Grinton. It’s a trail popular with mountain bikers and on our way back into Reeth we couldn’t resist a quick stop off at the Dales Bike Centre: the cafe and cakery is popular with locals and always busy, which is a sure sign of quality. We stop in here pretty often for a bacon butty or lunch – this time we caved and got a slice of the biscoff banana bread to share. We ended up wishing we had a slice each! Thank you so much to our buy me a coffee supporters, I always try and pass your support on to local independent shops and cafes.
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. This is a stile free route and there are a couple of places where you can let your dog off the lead, although you should always check first for livestock. The river largely isn’t accessible, and keep in mind that the Swale can have strong currents, especially after rain. There are a few short sections of road walking (with pavement).
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