The journey begins

Over the last few years we have spent a fair amount of time in the Ribblesdale area, a place we like very much, and yet I have never really paid any attention to the River Ribble itself. That’s surprising as I have followed several rivers over the years. So I decided to put that right.

I wanted to get to where the Ribble actually begins its life as a river and that’s at the appropriately named Ribblehead. We first called in at Hawes for coffee and to buy Wensleydale cheese - amazed by the almost total lack of people around, so good. Then we headed up and over the hills between Hawes and Ribblehead.

This photo is of course the well-known, and often photographed, Ribblehead viaduct which strides the valley - no trains as there are strikes taking place! This was taken from the ‘other side’ - not the usual side - as I wanted to show the huge area of moorland hills on the far side of the viaduct and the railway embankment. Here many becks, sikes and gills fall from the slopes and eventually join up to form the Ribble, away to the right of my photo. (If you follow the map link you can see this happening.)

From Ribblehead we took the Settle road, with the river away to the left. We occasionally got glimpses of it as it meandered its way between drumlins. (Gordon was surprised that no one on University Challenge the other night knew what a drumlin was). When we catch up with it later it will be a full-grown river.