Ilkly

When you think of Yorkshire, what do you think of? Now answers could include Yorkshire pudding(haven't made that yet), white roses, pie and mushy peas (yet to actually eat mushy peas and will hold out as long as possible), and of course the moors.

The moors are a beautiful, wonderful and bit of a dangerous thing, dangerous because they go on and on. However I'm more concerned with the beautiful and wonderful part of it. Yorkshire is great because there is countryside everywhere. I get on a train into the city and half of my ride I see country side for. You take a train out of the city for ten, fifteen, thirty minutes and you can end up in the middle of nowhere very quickly. From the centre of West Yorkshire you can easily access Ilkly by train. Ilkly provides easy and beautiful access to Yorkshire's moors.

Now when one arrives in Ilkly it is a bit tricky to figure out where it is that you are going unless you've been there before. The Ilkly website recommends that you find a map or route booklet from a local bookstore. Well it took some doing to find a book store, but in the process I found a tea room. I have to say over the last several months I have become quite fond of tea rooms. They are lovely. There are so many of them that are so nice! This one started out nice and calm and quickly became extremely busy as the brunch crowd started to stream in.

 So the walking out of town towards the moors began.

And continued.

And continued some more.

Along the way I saw some pretty sights.


















Once again I am reminded of Miley Cyrus' song "It's a Climb." The funny thing is it's a good song, likely one of her best, if not her best. And yet it has so many applications to life.

















More climbing in my future...

Can you see it? Right there. I'm going there!

One of the many views that day.

Who knows what this plant is? I saw more of it in the Lakes District.

Cow and Calf Rocks. 

Even more impressive close up.

 Now just to be clear, the moors aren't a quick two minute walk outside of Ilkly's town centre. You do have to do a certain amount of walking to get there. If I recall correctly, it was about a thirty or so minute walk, mostly uphill, to get to. It's a great walk, but not for the unfit unless you're really going to take your time.

 Once you are there, and you have found the Cow and Calf Rocks, you discover that it is actually quite the popular destination. There are tourists everywhere. There is a car park for those who are afraid of a little public transport or walking. This allows people to come from all over to wander the moors and hopefully not get lost, have a pint or a meal at the nearby Cow and Calf pub, which I understand is very popular. I did not call in as I didn't have the time and went back via a different route. The Cow and Calf Rocks are also a very popular destination for adventurers who enjoy climbing. There were people doing free climbing as well as your more traditional rock climbing with ropes and protection.

Many people like to climb them. I could not -far too frightened of heights. 

 I didn't really get very far in my climbing. My fear of heights and wondering how on earth I would get down, or what it would feel like if I fell, prevented me from getting too high up. I walked around. Just to give you an idea of how massive and impressive the rocks were I had my picture taken beside one of the more colourful ones. They are amazing. It reminded me of...well I'm not sure really, but if you think about how old these rocks are, as well as how massive they are it's quite humbling. That and they just look really cool.

Look how small and insignificant I am compared to this rock. You can only see part of it as it is!

By walking around, I did reach the top of the rocks. Up there I was greeted by an amazing view. I wanted to sit there forever. But there was still far too much walking for me to do and moors for me to see. Not to mention more wind to brave.

 When you head out into the moors you continue heading uphill. As you hike the moors its like you never start going uphill. You begin to go downhill again as you head back out to head into Ilkly-proper again.

 As my hiking buddy and I continued our trek through the moors, we came across an interesting little construction. There is a little corner built just off the side of the walking path.

 The corner stone of the seat reads, 'Stanza stone poetry walk.' We sat there for a little bit. It was peaceful. You get a chance to sit and relax, be a little sheltered from the wind and just listen. It calm and quiet.

 After a little rest in poetry corner, we were back on the trail. Heading back into to town was a little bit easier than heading up into the moors. The views were just as great. After a while I started to get tired and just wished that I was home. To be fair that was after about four hours of hiking.

 This is actually a picture of Ilkly from the foot of the moors.

 There were some interesting things to be discovered in Ilkly other than tea shops and pubs and moors. I  found this little garden. It is the Millennium Gardens. It's quite neat. It's a bit of a maze around this little green space that sits on the edge of the town, just below the moors. Some of the stones have local businesses engraved on them. I'm assuming that means they are local sponsors of walks and greenspaces.

Here is another great thing about Ilkly, and much of Yorkshire as well, gardens and flowers are very well kept. It makes the areas beautiful. In Bradford you see it mostly in the parks. However, this nicely kept patch is just a little green space too small to be anything other than the little bit you see here. It's very close to being a round about  and that's about it. It wasn't a proper park, but it was beautiful

Would I go to Ilkly again? Absolutely. The only problem is that there are so many other gorgeous parts of the country to walk around and admire as well.