Off-roading with Jack

Spot the pint of bitter!

For a while now Jack has wanted to go off-roading. Andrea has done it with Jack a couple of times, he always complains that 'Mum always tells me to slow down an be careful'.

We set off along the main road towards Halifax, at the end of swalesmoore we headed up the track in front of Rose Temple. The muddy hill was pretty hard work, we'd both were soon out of breath. Once we climbed the hill we headed along the top of swalesmoore, it was good fun heading down the strap track back to the road by the ski Centre.

From here we headed along the track just below the Sportsman pub, this section is great fun, heading downward with good clear wide sections. There's plenty of mud, but it's pretty straight forward to make good progress. You pass a couple of farms. The path turns into the wider Turner Lane, an unmade road. Here we turner left down Jerwood Hill Road, a very steep track. 

Turning left again we headed along  Horley Green Lane, this quickly becomes very narrow and steep, Jack has happy to charge down the track sending rubble flying everywhere. The track opens back put and we headed down further to Shibden Mill Inn. It didn't take that long to get here, but from here it's all up hill to get home.

Time for a drink before the long haul up Blake Hill, Jack doesn't have enough mussels to make consistent progress and has to keep stopping. I kept waiting for him, and we kept talking to take our minds off the pain! Still this is much easier than trying to head home on the muddy paths!

Good fun to spend time with Jack doing this. Only a few months ago he'd have cried off all the uphill peddling!