In this section, we reprise one walk each month from our past exploits - currently from our second 50 walks. Afterwards, a brief description will be entered on the Second 50 Walks page thus expanding the logs of our activities.
With apologies, we are "stuck" on Walk 65 until our Special Projects Director has the time to progress further.
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2.5.97 Walk 65 Harry’s Ramble No.8 (11 miles)
Otley – Menston – Dick Hudson’s – Ilkley Moor – Burley Woodhead
MD – Co.Sec. – Dir.Ed. – JK – PP Dir w/o Portfolio – Alan O – Andy P – Tim – John H – DSP
Warm & sunny
This was the first Harry’s Ramble without the man himself who had sadly passed away 11 months before and as such, could have been a somewhat sombre occasion. However we knew H would not have wanted this and so we set off with a determined air of joie de vivre. Co Sec must have felt that an extra half hour in bed would not go amiss as he’d decided this year we should have a new starting point – his house!! Maybe he had stayed up until the early hours watching the results from a momentous General Election.
Quite why we had all agreed to an extension of the walk we had undertaken two years before when we had started at Menston I’m not too sure, but anyway there was a good turnout from ten members who all wanted to walk, drink and remember Harry. Indeed there would have been a couple more had not other obligations intruded.
It was a beautiful warm, sunny, Spring day as we set of from Otley, locating the old railway track bed and making our way up to Menston. Unfortunately Co Sec had not done his homework as we neared the first road crossing and there was a good deal of to-oing and fro-ing as we tried to determine the route, thus provoking a good deal of banter from the more vociferous of those in the party. From Menston though the way was quite apparent as we followed the path of two years before until we reached Scone when a more direct route was found across to Dick Hudson’s and lunch time refreshments.
We didn’t travel far after leaving the hostelry two hours later, before we found a resting place among the crags and in the warmth of this sheltered spot it wasn’t long before most of us were away with our dreams and snoring in various degrees of intensity. Another hour had elapsed before we were on our way across the moor to our eventual destination at The Hermit, Burley Woodhead. A good meal and a few more drinks raised again, as at lunch time, to a good and trusted friend who we all felt we had been privileged to know.
