“New for 2014 – Ribble Valley Rambler”

The new Ribble Valley Rambler walks organised by The Friends of DalesRail are Sunday walks. “All walks are from the 09.00 Leeds-Settle-Carlisle service and return to the 12.59 Carlisle-Settle-Leeds service.” Therefore they tend to be shorter and easier than many on the full Saturday programme which tend to comprise full days out.

The weather forecast for Settle for Sunday was for rain but when my 09.16 train from Shipley arrived at Settle Station the sky was blue and the sun was shining. Everywhere had a light dusting of frost and all puddles and muddy paths were reduced to ice. It was the ideal day for a tramp along the banks of the River Ribble at a fastish pace to keep warm.

Frosty Fields by the Ribble

For this walk I joined a small group of Friends of Dalesrail and leader, Penny, to enjoy a 7 mile easy walk from station to station following for the most part The Ribble Way.

Our path also crossed much of the Long Preston Wet Grassland Project. The LPWGP launched in 2004 with the aim of improving the wildlife value of the Ribble floodplain between Settle, Long Preston and Wigglesworth. The project area covers 765 ha.

Walking through part of the Wet Grassland Project

This was a pleasant ramble on mainly level footpaths. There was just one slight climb but looking back from the ‘top’ we had a clear view of one of the famous Three Peaks – Pen Y Ghent.

We ate our picnic lunches on benches outside the Reading Room in the middle of Rathmell village opposite the church.

Approaching Rathmell village

Rathmell is a village of dog lovers and we met several and heard about their answer to another Yorkshire village‘s calendar fund-raising efforts.

The Rathmell Rovers calendar raised over £1000 for charity