Remarkable Ripon

 Wednesday 31st July 2024.                  Remarkable Ripon

For today’s adventure the lads have planned to explore a region of Ripon known locally as Wet Lands, it’s an area close to the racecourse on the outskirts of the City. Their means of getting there will include a train journey from Leeds to Harrogate , followed by a bus ride from Harrogate to the bus station in Ripon, arriving in city at about 11:15.

From the bus station the lads went in search of a cafe located on Micklegate, only to find out this establishment didn’t fully open until midday. With the uncertainty of how long our intended journey to the Wet Lands and back would take we abandoned our early all day breakfast plans.

From Micklegate the lads now made their way to an entry point of the river Skell just a few hundred yards away over Stone Bridge. From this point they would follow this river to the point where it joined the larger river Ure, then follow its course heading east until they reached the next river bridge, this part of their journey took them through a wooded area then on into large open cornfields with the main road running along side them.

Finally finding a suitable exit point the lads now left  the riverbank and carefully crossed this rather busy road in order to reach the entrance to the Wet Lands and the ideally placed Refreshments Van parked on a small car park. Close bye was the ideal place to enjoy a sandwich and drink purchased from the said Van, under the shade of a large oak tree which gave us much relief from the rather warm sunshine that we were blessed with today. We spent a good half hour relaxing in this particular spot before considering our next steps.

Our intended return bus back to Harrogate leaves Ripon about 2:35 pm , the time now was around 1:00 pm. To reach our goal of the Wet Lands was considered a little bit too ambitious, so a short route was sought.

 

This new shorter route took the lads around the front of the racecourse stand and over a large grass area before they eventually reached the canal towpath, from here it would be a leisurely walk back towards the city centre and maybe time for the enjoyment of an Ice Cream, not so turned out to be the answer. With the bus station now within sight we made or way towards it, on arrival we were now faced with an ever increasing number of passengers waiting for the No36 bus, the previous bus had been cancelled, it would be almost 70 passengers that climbed aboard hoping to get a seat, eventually with a slight delay the driver switched on the engine and off we began slowly heading for Harrogate.

It was a rather hot and stuffy climate on the top deck of this bus causing some of the lads to fall asleep as we trundled along, some slight altercation with a couple of passengers at the bus stop in Ripley leading to further delays in our journey. The bus did eventually arrive at stand 8 in Harrogate about quarter past three giving John, Brian, Malcolm, Colin, Glenn, Derek and Dave enough time to say farewell to Mark (alias Bruce) as he was not taking the train back to Leeds. Now the seven of us made our way to platform 3 in order to catch the 15:35 heading for Leeds, Wakefield and beyond.

Upon reflection with almost 5 miles in distance walked things didn’t always go to plan, our original suggested route would have involved walking along side that very busy road for nearly a mile or so , that was why we decided upon the different route taking in the rivers Skell and Ure, a much pleasant experience even though possibly slightly further, this decision obviously taking up extra time.which would have been necessary to achieve our intended target of the far reaches of the Wet Lands etc. Nevertheless we thoroughly appreciated the change in plans and enjoyed our adventure.

Cheers Everyone.