The Long Way 'Round (Lynn Kerstan)

A “dale,” I have recently learned, is a valley. I suppose everyone knew that but me. I’d have guessed something like rolling, grassy, sheep-studded hills. As opposed to a moor, which is open, rolling, infertile land. In Yorkshire, to my undiscerning eye, the moors and dales looked pretty much alike, and both were exceedingly beautiful. Or so Alicia tells me.

As we settled in the car and prepared ourselves to leave Fountains Abbey, I asked if we had to go back through Ripon. Nice enough town, mind you, but with twisty, crowded, confusing streets. After studying the detailed four-miles-to-an-inch map book, Alicia said we could take a road that went the opposite direction but curved to eventually join up with the route to our destination. Tuesday is market day in Hawes, which is practically in the middle of nowhere, and we wanted an authentic rural cobblestone-streeted market-town experience.

I agreed to the revised route without looking at the map, which I later came to regret. But no one was at fault for what lay ahead. Alicia and have have a No-Fault Travel Policy. We do out best, mostly, and if we screw up for whatever reason...oh, well. Besides, we had no reason to be apprehensive. For the first hour, the narrow road curled around lush grassy fields, flirted with burbling streams, and slipped through tiny villages you’d miss seeing if you sneezed. Throughout our trip, Alicia was on a mission to find the ideal village for a six-month stay, in part a dream and also a serious goal. If not for its remote location in Nidderdale, the lovely Pateley Bridge (shown above) might have taken the prize.

But soon after, the road began to rise into the hills and all I saw was a narrow pavement with a stone wall or a treacherous rocky gully or a precipitous cliff to my left. Or all three at once! The picture shows perhaps the only stretch of unthreatening navigable road that didn't have me in a state of near panic. Yes, the road was sometimes empty, save for us. But most of the time a vehicle had the audacity to come from the other direction. Let’s just say this dale road ain’t big enough for the both of us, cowboy. Not with me in the #&*@* Mercedes, terrified I’d scrape the purty silver paint against the rock. Invariably I slowed, snuggled as close to the wall as I dared, and let the interloper speed by.

As you can imagine, we weren’t making good time. Even when I was alone on the road, the blind curves held me to about 20 mph, if that. Which naturally annoyed the locals in smaller cars who swept down on me from behind and practically fornicated with my back bumper while insisting with hand gestures that I speed up. Nah gonna happen. Blind curves ahead. But the cars were too close for me to slow and pull over out of their way, and the drivers were too stubborn to back off, so they had to wait for the rare straight opportunity with no traffic coming at us. After a couple hours of this, I was tense, irritable, and No Fun to Be With.

Now and again Alicia would point out something special for me to look at, but my gaze was riveted on the road. I did perk up when she mentioned the signs offering sheep farms for sale. I could pull over, write a check, hand Alicia the car keys, and raise sheep! Better than getting squashed like a bug on the Road of Death. Oh. If you’re wondering why Alicia didn’t share the driving, that was my fault as well. For one thing, she wasn’t listed as a driver on the rental agreement. And for another, bad as I am when navigating killer roads with edges only inches from the tires, I’m even worse as a passenger.

This is pretty typical scenery in the Swaledale area, except for the lack of sheep in the walled pastures. As the sun sank into the west, I began to wonder if we’d escape the dales before dark. They seemed suddenly threatening to me, although we were passing into James Herriot country. The Yorkshire Dales veterinarian has become a draw for tourists who fell in love, as I did, with his books and the Brit television show, All Creatures Great and Small. The town where the series was filmed has a mock-up of Herriot’s office and lots of memorabilia, although we hadn’t time to stop there. We had a market to attend and cheese to buy!

Finally (!!) we came to where the teensy-weensy yellow “scenic road” on the map merged with the marginally wider and slightly less threatening route to Hawes. But we were still an hour away, and dusk was melding into dark by the time we arrived. Naturally, the market itself could not be found. Buyers had got what they came for and sellers had long since packed up and gone home.

The town, which we’d expected to be colorful and lively, looked gray and grim and dull. But that was more a reflection of the twilight shadows and our exhaustion than Hawes itself. In full daylight, it woulld be a charming place to explore. And let me add our experience there this was the only true disappointment we experienced on this trip, although not the most maddening. As always, in usual Alicia-Lynn fashion, we shrugged and soldiered on.

Legs uncertain after many traumatic hours in the car and both of us ravenous after a long day without more than a hurried snack-breakfast, we staggered into a small grocery and bought tacky packaged sandwiches for supper. After wolfing them down in the car, we set out for the dreary, multi-hour drive back to Witton-le-Wear. And no, this time we did not choose the “scenic” B-road back to the motorway.

But we did achieve one of our goals. Wensley cheeses are famous in England, and we had intended to stock up at the Tuesday market, buying from local vendors. But the cheeses were for sale in the grocery as well (yay!), so we did not return empty-handed. I considered, but rejected, a box of cheeses (pictured) that featured something called a “Middle Age Spread.”
Thanks very much, but I already have that!