Thread by @politic_animal

In a pie shop in Skipton that also sells Prosecco. Welcome to the new Yorkshire.

In a throw back to #GoWest, we’re back on Skipton’s High Street. Catching the last bus (of the week) to Langcliffe. 🚌

Squeezing along some very narrow roads as we head up Airedale.

Got to admire this view for a bit while we waited to squeeze past a beer lorry. 🚌 🚛 🍺

We’re half an hour late due to having to make a horse box leaving the Malham Show reverse half a mile to a handy primary school playground so we could pass. But now the 75 is climbing up single-track dry-stone wall lined roads out of Airedale… 🚌

…over the limestone scarred uplands below Fountains Fell… 🚌

…across the high sheep pastures, over 400m above sea level, with an alluring glimpse back to the distinctive nose of Pen-y-Gent… 🚌 🐑

…then down, down, down into Ribblesdale… 🚌

…to finally get off in the lovely little village of Langcliffe. I’ve never been able to smell a bus’ brakes quite so hard when I’ve got off. The 75 - it’s a v long way round from Skipton to Settle, and it only runs on summer Saturdays, but it’s a great bus route.

Classical England: a sprinkling of names on the war memorial; teas at the institute; 4 shillings for continuing breaches of the parish bylaws; rounders on the village green.

Walked from Langcliffe along classic Dales green lanes, then steeply up beside Stainforth Scar to the high pastures at Winskill, to reach the cool green gorge of Catrigg Force (or Foss, the maps and signs can’t agree)…

…where Stainforth beck plunges off the moorland in a deep limestone cleft.

Then down through Stainforth to its seventeenth-century packhorse bridge, spanning the peaty Ribble just upstream of Stainforth Force and its popular plunge pool. Downstream towards Settle, it’s a much calmer river.

Then down to Settle for lunch, and back along the lanes to Langcliffe in time for an excellent afternoon tea spread at the Institute, a fine cupola-d building built by the mill owner to keep his workers out of the pub. The pub has long since closed.

Once more over the tiny sheep- and limestone-strewn hill roads from Langcliffe to Malham. On Sundays/bank holidays the 75 becomes the 881 @DalesBus, but the bus and excellent driver are the same. Thanks to @foscl and @northernassist for helping to keep these great buses running.

Hopped off on the high moors at one of the loneliest places I’ve ever got off a bus…

Walked over to Malham Tarn, one of just two lakes in the limestone Dales, thanks to a bit of slate to prevent it all draining away. Some very handsome calfs on the verge of weaning nosing around the water’s edge…

Then off to revisit some more GCSE geography at Water Sinks. Now you see a river. Now you don’t, as it disappears into the cracks and caves of the underlying limestone to reappear 3km south and 130m downhill at Aire Head, to become one of Yorkshire’s great rivers.

Then to the dramatic dry valley of Watlowes, where the glacially-bloated Aire once flowed towards the precipice of Malham Cove, before it diverted underground 12,000 or so years ago…

Limestone wonderland.

Fought the greedy sparrows of Malham for our lunch before heading for the last Dalesbus back over the hill, from the little interchange at the National Park Centre, where the Lancaster and Bradford buses meet…

…for a last wonderful ride over the moors, the driver proudly pointing out Morecambe Bay glinting in the far distance. A very excellent day out.