My walking buddy and I have started to try and do regular walks, increasing our stamina for when we tackle more of the Dales 30 challenge. Over lockdown we have just been walking locally and have discovered lots of new paths just on our doorstep.

Yesterday we did a walk from a leaflet on walks from Burley in Wharfedale. Burley is a really intersting village, I would love to learn more about the vernacular architecture there as there are some very interesting cottages and houses. The photo below is of Burley Hall, we passed it right at the beginning of the walk. It’s now a residential home, but a peek over the wall revealed beautiful stone carving round the doorway, deep eaves under the roof and a gorgeous arched window.

We followed a path round the back of the hall, past the old corn mill where I used to buy bags of flour many years ago, eventually reaching the bypass and then down to the river Wharfe.

We kept looking out for a kingfisher but no luck, though we did see quite a few pied wagtails bobbin about on the stones. We had a lovely view for our cup of coffee and a sausage roll.

After our coffee break we left the river and walked across fields to loop back to Burley. We then went on a little exploration and found another section of the path down by the river and the goit.

I’d never heard of a goit until I started walking round here. It’s a bit like a mini canal which connected the river to the mill…still no sign of the kingfisher, though I did find out an interesting piece of information about kingfishers; they are very rarely preyed up by other birds or animals as they don’t taste very nice!

The goit links up with the weir, it’s a pretty long weir!…

We sat just below the weir to eat our sandwiches. We were watching the world go by when we noticed in the river just ahead of us was a bumble bee floundering in the water.I extended my walking pole to the full length so I could reach it and then slowly brought the pole up from underneath the bee. I was a bit worried that it get in a pickle and refuse help, but it quickly climbed onto my stick and enjoyed the lift to safety. We rested the pole down on a rock to give it chance to dry off, expecting it to fly off, but no, it gradually climbed the full length of my pole, we had to persuade it to move onto a leaf;

The stepping stones were pretty busy with people traipsing across for a picnic on the other side. Not a bad view for lunch and some perfectly sized stones for sitting on.

From there we walked back to the main street along an old lane. There were some beautiful oak trees along the side, we decided they were probably middle-aged in tree years!

Altogether we walked about five miles, not a huge amount but enough in hot weather.