Travel Stories from Britain Contest Winner
Published on August 4th, 2009.
Submitted by: Gunta Bluzma, Latvia
Leeds to Dent
This day was the best in my whole trip, it was like an adventure, with some risk and with unexpected beauty.
Several years ago I had decided to travel around Britain to see something more than London. I had Four day BritRail Pass. It is very easy to travel by rail to cities and there are a lot of very beautiful cities and villages to visit, but I wanted to see also something more of nature. I didn’t want to use the bus, just the rail. So I started to search in internet. After some efforts I found in internet, in the homepage of Yorkshire Dales National park, that there is possibility to have a nice walk from Dent train station to Ribblehead train station. I printed short description of this walk and very simple map.
We started this part of trip in Leeds, where we stayed at home of some hospitality club member. When I informed her about our plans to have a walk in this national park and showed our map, she tried to persuade us, that we will get lost with such map, that we need a real and decent map. But I decided to risk.
So, early in the next morning we took a train from Leeds to Dent. The trip was about 1h30 and we were entertaining ourselves by playing cards. Some old man with a little dog was looking at us for a while and then came and sat next to us and also wanted to join us. We tried to teach him the game we know, then he tried to teach some English game, but it was not easy because of the real British English language, which was not so easy to understand for us. When we arrived at Dent, I was suprised to see, that Great Britain can look like this – almost no houses, just the hills and sheeps and sheeps, a lot of nature. And no shops or cafes, no place to buy something for lunch. Unfortunately we had taken almost nothing to eat with us. We started our walk and it was very clear at the beginning, were we are and where we should go. We enjoyed the beautifull and unusual views for us. We could see also the viaducts, which you usually don’t see because you are in the train on it.
We met only a few people, other walkers. So, we often felt, that we are there alone and it gave the feeling of adventure. Will we survive and get to the final destionation? We luckily found some raspberries to eat. We met also some other walkers, who were sitting and having a picnic. We had a temptation to stop and start maybe some conversation in hope that maybe they will offer somethong also to us. But decided not to do so.
About in the middle of our walk we had to turn at the Bridge End Cottage and take the next path. At the beginning we though that this is the right place, where we should turn, but then the path almost disappeared in the meadow and we started to doubt. Maybe that house was not a Bridge End Cottage. So we turned back and tried to find the name of the house, but we could not. So we continued our way forward to find maybe other cottage or some person to ask. We walked and walked and had a bad feeling, that it is not correct and we decided to turn back. Then luckily at the same cottage and I noticed, that on the electricity pole there is a sign, where was written Bridge End Cottage. We were very happy to realize, that this is the real point we should turn and that we really should take that dissappearing path. So we continued our way and got to the next points mentioned in the description of walk. We went over the railway tunnel and continued to enjoy the wonderful landscapes.
Soon our trip had to end, we had not much time left for the train we had planned to take. Luckily finally we reach the great Ribblehead viaduct and the train station and there was a nice place to eat! But we had only 10 mintues till train. So without having anything eaten for the whole day, we took the train and went back to Leeds, where we had a nice meal. This day was the best in my whole trip, it was like an adventure, with some risk and with unexpected beauty.
Filled under England, Promotions & Contests.
paaam on October 7th, 2009
A real adventure…what trips should be!