Malham, North Yorkshire

Sunday 23rd April

We have taken Fufu, our motorhome, to stay for the weekend on the Malham Showground, attending a meet of the Motor Caravan Northern Section of the Camping and Caravanning Club, which is really handy for the village centre. Our thanks goes to the stewards, Dennis and Carol, for the very warm welcome and assistance.

The pretty village of Malham is a Yorkshire Dales tourist hotspot. People are attracted by the extraordinary limestone landscape features in the area, including Malham Cove and Gordale Scar.

Malham Cove

The Cove is huge. The scale is illustrated in the above picture, with some people stood on top. It is around 80 metres tall and more than 300 metres wide.

The inland cliff-face of Malham Cove presents an enigma. Apparently, around 12,000 years ago, it was formed by a large and powerful ice-age river which fell over the parapet in a huge waterfall which eroded the face of the cove into its curved shape. The beck (or stream) which emerges quietly from the base of the cove is all that remains and this being limestone country, the water has dissolved the rock above and tracked its way underground. Following Storm Desmond in 2015, there was briefly water flowing over the top of the cove in a waterfall.

The cliff-face presents ideal opportunities for rock-climbers:

Right at the base of the cliff-face was a family of Mallard ducks. There were 14 very young chicks, which we later saw making their way downstream.

Gordale Scar

Gordale Scar is a limestone ravine, around a mile from Malham village. Gordale Beck runs through it over two waterfalls at the head of the valley, the upper one of which passes through a large hole in the rock. The path through the valley beyond this point requires some agility, as you climb up alongside and sometimes in, the lower waterfall.

Janet’s Foss

Leaving Gordale Scar, the path takes you past Janet’s Foss, then on through pretty woodland. This land is owned by the National Trust.

Kirkby Malham and Airton

On the Sunday, we chose to walk downstream, away from the more popular locations, towards the villages of Kirkby Malham and Airton. Airton is the point where the Malham Beck and other streams merge to become the River Aire, which eventually passes through Skipton on to Keighley, Bingley and Shipley, through to Leeds and Castleford, then on to join the River Ouse at Airmyn. Many streams in the area just appear out of the hillside, apparently from nowhere.

Airton is a really pleasant village with a large village green with very old buildings set around it.

On our way back, we chose to have lunch at The Victoria Inn, Kirkby Malham, which is another pretty village.

Hanlith Hall was originally built in the 17th century, but has been much modified since.

Our very pleasant walk took us alongside the river where we saw many different species of bird, including: a wren, a nuthatch, a dipper, great tits, chaffinches, curlews and a buzzard.