Helen Stephenson's Yorkshire Holiday Travelogue - 11th October, 2007

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Thursday saw another of the late starts that are our speciality. We sat around and had a leisurely breakfast and discussed our options for the day, but didn't do much about getting ready to actually go out.

Eventually it was decided that we would go via Masham and Leyburn to Aysgarth, where there are waterfalls, and then on to Askrigg, where there are more waterfalls, and then we would drive over the Buttertubs Pass between Hawes and Thwaite.

The weather didn't look that promising, and at one stage there was more than mere drizzle, as it was necessary to run the windscreen wipers on something faster than mere intermittent.

We dodged the showers and took some roadside photographs and when we arrived in Leyburn, we stopped at the teapottery. It's tucked away on a trading estate where there's also a chocolate factory and a violin maker, as well as other more mundane enterprises. The teapottery is organised so that you enter at the rear of the factory, where the reception area has a video playing which describes the making of a specialty teapot. From there, you go into the factory, which has a tourist corridor around it with displays explaining what is being done at each station through the factory.

There's no charge for going through the factory, and photos are allowed if you ask, but we didn't bring our cameras inside. When you arrive at the end of the tour, you exit into a cafe and showroom where you can stop for a cup of tea and can purchase completed teapots. They turned out to have quite a good range of factory seconds on display and we picked them over and purchased a yellow Smart car to give to Stephen's Mum for her birthday. She loves those little cars and we think she'll be really tickled to have one for her teapot collection.

I also succumbed to a piano complete with piano stool all set up for a sing-along. I couldn't find much wrong with the piano I chose, even though it was a second. The same went for Jessie's Smart car. It had a bit of tape over one wheel indicating a problem, which might have been that the black paint on the wheel had left a small spot on the yellow paintwork.

The teapottery packaged up our purchases and I handed over my credit card to cover the cost, and then we got back on the road and headed towards Aysgarth. We weren't far along the road when Stephen saw a sign for a turnoff to Aysgarth, and although it seemed like it was much too early, we both saw the sign and we took the turnoff.

We think that the owners of Castle Bolton may have contributed to the signage, as that route to Aysgarth, which wasn't the main road, took us straight past the front gate for Castle Bolton. We elected not to go in, though.

We did see a really gorgeous tree in a village green. It was in its yellow autumn finery, and if there hadn't been a car right behind us, nowhere to park, and a couple sitting under the tree having a cuddle, we probably would have stopped and photographed it.

Our circuitous route took us through Redmire and Carperby, after which we made a left turn back towards Aysgarth. The National Parks centre and car park turned out to be on the side road we were still on, so we turned in and paid for two hours of parking. £2.20 seems to be the going rate for such car parks. We made use of the facilities, which included a composting toilet. That was a little bit breezy to sit on!

The waterfalls at Aysgarth are divided into Upper, Middle and Lower. The Upper Falls are behind the car park, the Middle Falls are just across the road, and the Lower Falls are about a half mile downstream through the woodland trail. Unlike the waterfall at Janets Foss, which had white water coming over it, the water in the Aysgarth Falls is a yellow ochre colour. I don't know whether it's peat or iron which is colouring the water, but it made for a different looking set of waterfalls.

None of the waterfalls has a particularly long drop. They are more like sets of stairs with the water flowing down over a number of small ledges. I found that 1/6 second gave me an optimum picture, and as I was prepared with my tripod, I could shoot at 1/6 second to my heart's content. Stephen, who is not a fan of fluffy water, shot with much faster shutter speeds, but I found somewhere around 1/6 second gave the impression of the water flowing, while not reducing the place where it landed to a fluffy mass.

We photographed all three falls, plus a heron near the Middle Falls, and a few pictures of the woodland trail, which was quite picturesque, but benefitted from setting a shade white balance to warm it up and bring out the autumn colours. Those colours aren't as much in evidence as we'd hoped for, but they are around if you look out for them.

By the time we'd finished at the Aysgarth Falls, the light was fading, so we didn't go any further, but found the main road back towards Leyburn. We made an interesting stop in East Witton, where we found a floodlit church. There was still a little colour left in the sky, so I got the camera onto the tripod and made use of the last of the colour in the sky for a couple of pictures of the floodlit front of the church, which had an impressive tower.

I'd also noticed that there were lights on inside the church and there seemed to be some nice stained glass at the rear, so we walked around the churchyard to the rear and I set my tripod up there, set the camera's white balance to "tungsten" and took a couple of pictures of the large east window. I found that the lighting inside created some "hotspots" so then I zoomed in on the individual panels within the window and photographed them for their details. The lights were on because choir practice was just about to start. In fact, we met the choirmaster as we were leaving, and he told us we were welcome to come inside for a look around, but we decided that we were more interested in finding some food, so we didn't go inside.

We stoped in Masham for burgers and chips to take away. It was five to eight and the shop was due to close at eight, so we only just got our takeaway. The bellringers were practising in Masham. They had a floodlit steeple on their church, but it was completely dark by then, so I decided not to expend photographic effort on it. It was just as well, because we wouldn't have got our burgers and chips if we'd dallied at the church for 20 or 30 minutes!

Then we had to find the cottage from the Grewelthorpe direction, from which we'd never previously approached it. The driveway doesn't stand out a lot and we nearly overshot it, but Stephen spotted it just in time and there wasn't anybody following close behind, so I was able to slam on the brakes and then make the turn into the driveway.



More from our October 2007 holiday in Yorkshire: Yorkshire Holiday Travelogue - 12th October, 2007

Back to Yorkshire Holiday Travelogue - 10th October, 2007

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Last Revised: 22nd October, 2007.