Settle Cave Walk

Lunch!

Recently I've been buying the Wainwright books, one of them covers walks on limestone in the Yorkshire Dales. This walk is described in detail in his book and looked like something we could do when the weather was poor. We've done several walks in the dales with the kids, usually heading to the high ground. This walk was different heading out of Settle and looping over higher ground and enabling us to explore several limestone caves on route.

We parked in Settle by the railway station and headed through town past the square and up Constitution Hill and followed the road up onto the fell. Once out in the open above the town we turned right and again headed upward. The weather was pretty poor and we were pretty much up in the clouds now. Following the line of a wall we headed along a dry broad valley. It was difficult to work out exactly where we were. There were several groups of young adults with large rucksacks on the main path it looked like they were all heading to Malham, the amount of noise they were making was incredible and it certainly wasn't very peaceful!

The kids were starting to get a bit board and wanted to know where all the caves were. The weather wasn't helping and it was difficult to judge how much further we should go. We decided to stop for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, there was a cave on the hillside so we sat in the entrance and had a break.

Outside Victoria Cave

Once we got moving again the weather cleared well enough for me to work out where we needed to head for Attermire Cave. I was surprised that Andrea was happy about this because the cave entrance is in the middle of a limestone cliff, gained by scrambling onto a ledge and traversing across at some height. If you didn't know where to look you wouldn't know the cave was there, indeed no one else was leaving the path to have a look.

It was pretty cool heading off the ledge, through the 'keyhole' and into the cave entrance. Once inside I took my rucksack off and got the torch out. Andrea wasn't into going any further and waited in the entrance. Jack, Finlay and me headed off around the corner at the end of the cave, it was amazing, we kept on heading further into the cave, Finlay decided he wanted to go back as he didn't feel comfortable, Jack and me kept going until we came to a small opening that would have meant a crawl through mud, just beyond here the passage opened into a chamber but we had come far enough. Finlay got his head around the dark and explored the caves with us.

Posing on a rock.

It was time to move on so we left the cave and headed back into the valley bottom and headed past Attermire Scar and on to Victoria Cave. The kids were now enthusiastic about the walk and needed very little encouragement to find our next adventure.

From the valley floor you don't see the size of Victoria Cave, its only when you scramble up the hillside that you see the huge opening.  Heading into the opening we soon reached a barrier with associated warning signs, which we promptly ignored! It was however pretty muddy, we did explore several of the passages and Jack and Findlay crawled through one of the passages to emerge outside, we also looked in a couple of the other caves in the area before moving on.

Inside Victoria Cave

Further up the valley we found Jubilee Caves, these can be seen from a distance. The kids headed off to explore on their own and surprisingly a couple of minutes later walked around the hillside back to the entrance, they had emerged from another entrance and walked back to us. Forcing me to follow them they insisted that I do the route. Emerging from the small hole was quite a squeeze, even for me. Jack and Finlay laughed at me and called me Homer as I struggled to pull myself through the tiny opening.

From here we walked back down a track and walked along the path above the valley before heading back down into Settle.

The kids loved this walk, these caves were relatively safe for us to do some amateur exploring, there are lots of other caves that are very dangerous and I certainly wouldn't have trusted the kids to go off exploring unless I was certain that they were safe.

It was a great way to make a walk slightly more interesting, I'd love yo go back to Attermire and push on further into the cave, maybe something to do later!

BSCA National and Regional Roller Championships 2012/13

Finlay Trying his best

Entered both Jack and Finlay into the roller championship, Jack in the Under 11s and Finlay in the Under 9s. Jack took it very seriously and was been practising on his power trainer for a couple of weeks. I got him an electric speedo which helped him to judge 500 metres and 1 kilometre, the distances that he needed to do in the competition. Finlay had borrowed a Beinn 24 Islabike from the bike club, he had a few goes at home but wasn't as serious as Jack.

The competition was held at Richard Dunn sports centre in the main hall. The kids competed in fours, they did two 500 metre runs, their best time from the two runs used to calculate points. Finally they did a single run for 1 kilometre again points were awarded. The was a straight 500 metre race for any kids who tied on points at the end.

Jack with blurred legs!

Jack came overall 3rd in the under 11s, his best 500 metre time was 30.346 seconds on his first run and he did 1 kilometre in 1min 6.76 seconds. He needs to find 3 seconds over 500 metres and  8 seconds over a kilometre. Jack was happy with his performance and enjoyed the day.

Finlay had to fight for his 3rd place, all the other kids were on race bikes with skinny tyres, Finlay's bike had big fat off road tyres which I know from experience make everything much harder. Finlay's best 500 metre time was 45.399 and over 1 kilometre he did 1 minute 45.159. This tied him for third and he had to do a roll off, it had been a bit of an emotional competition already for Finlay and it took quite a lot of cajoling to get him ready for the roll off. He set off slowly by by half way he got in front of the other kid, when he finished the other kid thought he'd won and stopped peddling,   I confirmed with the officials that Finlay had won, the other kid broke out into tears and his celebrating family went all quiet. I was happy for Finlay but struggled with drama of the race and the unfortunate way that it ended, it meant so much to get a good result, I was surprised at how serious it got, Finlay is only 7! The surprising thing was his 500 metre roll off time was 39.665, so it does prove that he was really trying.

It was great to see both kids getting their bronze meddles, both me and Andrea were well chuffed for them. It had ultimately been a positive experience for both of them, hope it keeps them motivated.

Snetterton Track Day

Snetterton is a long way from West Yorkshire so it made senses to drive down the day before. The kids were on holiday so Andrea and the kids came along. We stopped for tea at The Angel pub which is very close to the circuit. We got to the circuit at 6:30pm, cars had been using the track all day and me and Jack had a look around at the last few cars that were packing up. We parked the motorhome right next to the garages and I took the bike off the trailer and put it in garage seven. Jack and Finley got their skateboards out and practised on the smooth floor, surprisingly a guy came in and asked us to stop as we were making too much noise!

Got to bed early as I knew it was going to be a long day. Woke early and signed on straight away, got the bike noise tested and sat through the obligatory riders meeting. I've never been to Snetterton before and didn't have a clue about the track layout. Out for the first session and I took it very easy. I worked out very quickly that the track had several bends with wide entrances which would suite cars better than bikes with long straights that suited big bikes, pity I was on the 400.

It didn't take me long to get into my stride and before long I was circulating at speed. As usual I quickly got my head around the slower bends and took my time with the fast stuff. The first bend (Riches) at the end of the straight was the first challenge, although the circuit is flat it is still difficult to see the apex and exits of many bends, at least the first bend had tonnes of runoff, but I didn't want to head of into the field at 70mph plus.

Palmer is a long left hander where the curb always jumped out at me on the exit, I sorted this out by the end of the day but I'm sure there was much more speed here. Hamilton is another left hander, I didn't get this right all day, I wasn't using all the track on the exit, if I'd have been racing I wouldn't have been happy about this, but thankfully I'm only doing this for fun so I'm not beating myself up.

The right hander, Williams was important as this leads onto the back straight, I was okay with this and managed to do okay here. The Bomb hole is the only bend which features any type of height change, the bend does  appear to go through a bomb hole, it dips on the way in and there is a bit of a rise on the way out. 

Coram is a very frustrating bend, you've got to spend a huge amount of time on part throttle and then slow down for the final flick left back onto the straight.

To be fair I didn't push really hard all day, looking back I have thought about the day. The weather has been terrible and cold when I've been riding to work and there hasn't been any grip, I think that I didn't have a great feeling with how much grip there was and how far I could lean the bike over. The big wide open entrances to several of the bends meant that I was a bit lost finding the best lines and speeds, I'd need to spend a couple more days getting my head around all this. Finally the long straights don't suit the little 400 especially when predominantly people are using modern 600 or 1000's.

At the end of the day we set of back home, stopped for tea on the A1 and got home for 9:30pm.

I'd enjoyed the experience of Snetterton but I won't be hurrying back, It's a long way to go and the whole feel of the place is angled towards cars.

Barmouth Camping

It didn't feel like spring, we've had some serious snow recently and it was touch and go whether we would be able to set off. Most of the local lanes are still pretty unsafe with snow drifts and ice, even the main roads are down to single lanes due to the deep drifts.

Once we got away from Queensbury the snow disappeared and we made good time passing Manchester and Chester by lunch time. Once we got into Wales we headed back into snow. Thankfully as we got nearer to Barmouth it improved.

We headed through Barmouth and quickly found the Hendre Mynach campsite, it didn't take long to Get everything setup. After I had a beer and Andrea a glass of wine we headed into Barmouth for a look around. A 10 minute walk along the front was all it took, we enjoyed browsing in the shops and looking for restaurants and cafes. The kids had some sea food, cockles and muscles and we headed back to the van for tea.

We woke up and decided to do the Mawddach Cycle trail, the weather was cold but dry, so we all headed off into Bar mouth and over the railway / pedestrian bridge and headed along the train towards Dolgellau. Findlay wasn't too chuffed and made pretty hard work of everything. It was difficult to keep him motivated and he just didn't get his head around it. We stopped at the George III hotel for a drink and some lunch. The food was really nice and we all enjoyed the rest.

Andrea and Finlay decided to head back but me and Jack headed onto Dolgellau. We had a walk around town before retracing our steps. Had a quick drink back at the George III, some cheeky devil stole my bike hat! We then headed back to the camp site. Jack was in good form, I could just about keep up, we were soon back at the camp site! In all we'dAndrea and Findlay did 16 miles and Jack and me about 21 miles.

We headed into town so the kids could spend their money, Findlay bought toys and Jack get a skateboard, there was a small skate park next to the campsite, good one Jack.

In the evening the sea was really high and waves were bashing into the front. The kids loved dodging the spray and we spent a couple of hours watching the waves and using the skate park.

Next morning we decided Tobago for a walk , we spent all day on the hills behind the camp site, it was really good to be up high, for part of the day we were above the snow line, so it felt cold. The highest point on the walk was Crag Y Grut, but the whole walk was really good. Unlike the Yorkshire Dales or the Lake District it was very quiet, we only saw 3 people all day and we spent most of the day walking on paths that had not cut through the grass. In all we did about 8 or 9 miles so we'd worked up quite an appetite!

We decided to head into town and had a great meal at The Anchor restaurant. The kids were well looked after and the food was really nice, especially after a day walking on the hills!

Our last full day and we decided to take the train up to Portmadog. It was about an hour on the train, but the views from the train made the time fly. We could see Portmeirion across the bay. We spent most of the day looking around the shops, the kids spent the last of their money and Andrea bought a few things. Jack wanted to go on the miniature railway but we managed to persuade him not to bother.

Our last morning and we got a kite out on the beach, the kids played in the skate park for the last time and I packed up everything in the van. Heading home we were surprised that there was still snow everywhere. Back in Queensbury the snow was just as we left it, roll on better weather.

Barmouth was good fun, even the very cold weather didn't spoil the weekend, luckily there wasn't any reason or snow!