Friday 16/9 Skipton

ETim and Mike joined us today which necessitated an early rise to do the big boat clean up, make up the spare beds, find the table top again. Cleaning the little bathroom was a particularly tortuous affair accompanied by lots of swearing. Aqua Life was sparkling by the time Lawrence and I had finished.

To reward ourselves for our domestic endeavours we visited Skipton Castle. The Gatehouse

Skipton Castle is one of the best preserved and most complete medieval castles in England.

By 1645 it was the only Royalist stronghold left in the north. After a series of sieges over 3 years the castle finally surrender to the Roundheads. Cromwell ordered the removal of the roof and upper walls of the castle. However the locals employed for the job were very half hearted about their task and 10 years later the owner, Lady Ann Clifford was given permission to rectify the damage provided the rebuilt walls and roof were not strong enough to hold canons or withstand canon fire. The oldest parts of the castle date to 1310.

The inner courtyard and the yew tree planted as a sapling by Lady Ann in 1659.

Have you worked it out. That's over 357 years old!!

View from one of the first floor Windows

By the time we had finished exploring the castle and perished the markets it was time to go to the station and meet Mike and Tim. 

Mike and Tim had left South Devon at 5.00am, drove to Mercia Marina in the midlands, where they left the car, caught a taxi to Derby and trained from Derby to Skipton with a change at Leeds and they arrived at 2.00pm

We got them back to the boat and revived them with some tea and fruit cake purchased at the market. Which I wish we hadn't because Mike's Mum had sent the boys laden with home cooked cake and scones. And her baking is legendary. Thank you Jean. 

By the time we had caught up on each other's news and Tim and Mike had unpacked and Tim had attracted the swan family - he is a bit of a bird magnet - 

and fed them some of the duck food which they happily scoffed (thank you, Lawrence) it was late afternoon and we opted for a walk as Tom and Mike had been sitting for most of the day.

We walked up the Springs Branch of the canal

And then followed Ella Beck around the back of the castle

The path then went through someone's front yard

Then back along Ella Beck, through the castle woods

On a loop walk back into town.

Our walk took twice as long as expected because Lawrence and Tim Kept stopping to discuss the problems of Europe (the rest of the world will come later on the trip, I'm sure).  So we decided to look for somewhere for dinner 

And ended up at the Woolley Sheep Pub for a grandiose sounding, but fairly ordinary dinner.

Back to the boat for coffee and more chat and then bed for the weary travelers.

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