Tuesday 26th March 2018
I usually have lots of tea with my toast and marmalade breakfast, then an hour later I get the jangles for coffee. Today I set off in the car before coffee deprivation set in. After forty minutes drive Orton Scar Café came to the rescue. My coffee was accompanied by a slice of millionaires shortbread. Whilst the quality was fine the size and volume reminded me of laying some 3ft. x 2 ft. paving slabs many years ago. Those who know me are aware of me having a predeliction for cakes and a reputation for shifting large portions (my family nickname years ago was Daddy Dustbin) but I was beaten by this slab of confection. I surreptitiously wrapped the remaining third and stowed it away for future consumption on the hill.
Orton is situated beneath Great Asby Scar, a huge area of limestone pavement at about 1000ft - a glorious environment for walking, but today my route would only skirt below the steep fellside leading up to the plateau. I left the village by a an intriguing narrow walled path, across a couple of fields and then onto an old bridleway skirting the foot of the aforementioned limestone escarpment, but nonetheless with extensive views in all directions.
There was a covered reservoir marked on the map only a hundred metres below the trig on Great Asby Scar and I pondered on the rationale for having this so high up - surely the best place for a reservoir is lower down where water accumulates - another of life's mysteries.
I stopped for a sandwich and more coffee (and the rest of my shortbread chocolate paving slab) at the furthest point north on the route shown on my map below before turning to descend back to Orton.
A pleasant 3.7 mile circuit.
I'm off for a coffee now.
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| Orton Scar Café |
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| The narrow enclosed pathway leading out of the village |
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| Great Asby Scar- click to enlarge - red dots show my route |
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| It's a good job they didn't do the Channel Tunnel! |
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| The old bridleway leading up to the reservoir |
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| The high altitude resrvoir |
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| The view to the Howgills from my luncheon spot |
We've spent a couple or three nights (on different occasions) in a layby just outside of Orton, and have run around some of the nearby lanes in awful weather. Never been to the cafe, but if we find ourselves there again I will be tempted. My cake eating ability is entirely disproportionate to my size.
ReplyDeleteGayle - I reckon there can't be many places I've been to that you haven't.
ReplyDeleteI reckon that without too much effort I could name a couple of hundred Munros that fall into that category!
DeleteI've walked in that area only a couple of times and definitely need to go back - it has a lot to offer. I've always assumed that hilltop reservoirs were sited so as to provide water pressure - like a header tank.
ReplyDeleteGayle - Ok, let's keep it to say England. How are you with all the English Marilyns?
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beating the bounds - The reservoir thing- I have created a sort of myth about myself only having a tenuous grasp on things scientific which is partly true, but not as much so as my occasional tongue in cheek remarks may indicate.
I was rather hoping for a shot of the shortbread!
ReplyDeleteRe:Frank5175's comment - So was I!
ReplyDeleteFrank - good to note you are still reading the blog - it must be a long time now - I can't remember how you came across conradwalks in the first place. Are you a walker?
ReplyDeleteFrank and The Crow - The anecdote is true, but I reckon a photo would have inhibited my use of a bit of journalistic license, but just to satisfy you both see my next post.
Ah, I missed the twinkle in your eye! I should have know, sorry.
ReplyDeleteglad to see you are gobbling up the so-called Westmorland Dales before they become bowdlerised and interpretation-ridden children's playgrounds at the hands of the busybodies of the Yorkshire Dales National Park 'Authority': as I passed by this morning, I saw what looked like a brand spanking new shiny black framed 'visitor interpretation' sign by the old quarry 'parking area' at the top of the hill coming from Orton - I imagine it must say ' 'Orton Scar' - a once outstanding example of limestone clint landscape ruined by vandals and the inertia of local and national governments . . . .' - or, maybe, more likely, 'Orton Scar - a wild, windswept, bleak unspoiled landscape about to be tamed and signposted by 'us' ', signed the YDNPA.
ReplyDeleteGo now, whilst you value freedom to find your own salvation !
beatingthe bounds - Well it wasn't that obvious.
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gimmer - I keep trying.
What do you think of this one? I guess not another sign within a ten mile radius - I was sort of amused by it - if you venture another twenty yards or so you are "brown-bread"
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ynvh8r0k9nzkzlk/IMG_3373a.JPG%20copy?dl=0
i'm not sure that my meagre intellect is up to this - or the image is the wrong one !
ReplyDeletegimmer - sorry - try this:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dropbox.com/s/x8246cjygg7k5qz/Slide037%20copy.JPG?dl=0
I see - most odd - there must be thousands of cliffs and waterfalls in the highlands (and lakeland of course) with none - maybe it's because these are famous visitor sights and the many unwary must be warned, whereas above, say, the cliffs of Coire Mhic Fhearchair, only the wary tread. But it is a bit strange when the falls are only 'viewable' from below.
ReplyDeleteI think Orton Scar will soon deserve such a notice - a lighthouse with lantern and klaxon perhaps - which would bring in the crowds - and so justify the much overdue interpretative installation building built with the same robustness as the roadside signs so favoured by the authority - oh, and, of course, a 'pay as you park' machine, to heighten certain of your commenters pleasures.
To be followed by a stately pleasure dome, hard by the caverns, and the other essentials of national park amenity.
I could go on, but they are coming to get me . . .
gimmer - I can see I'll have to get busy before all this comes to pass.
ReplyDeletethere's a meeting at Orton village hall sometime soon so we can be enlightened about the dire plans 'they' have to emasculate and pacify the area - perhaps we should go along and try to dissuade them . . .
ReplyDeleteglimmer-you go and report back - you would be much more effective than me.
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