A Journey Up T’North Part I: Peak District & Yorkshire Dales
Top Withens Farm in West Yorkshire, thought to be the inspiration for Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’.
Although we can proudly say we’ve travelled over 60,000 miles spanning 28 countries across Europe, we’re ashamed to admit we’ve seen woefully little of our home country.
Despite creating a range of stickers representing the UK’s 15 National Parks we’d never actually visited most of them, and decided that needed to change.
I began the trend in September 2020, when I surprised Ben with a camping trip to Snowdonia. We elected not to take the van, partly owing to the fuel costs and partly to recreate a sense of nostalgia for our uni days when we would drive my clapped-out old Polo to whatever beach or cliffside camping spot we could find and pitch a tent there for the night. It felt good to live minimally, rising and settling according to the daylight, even if the late Autumn temperature was hovering just above freezing.
A cold autumnal evening spent by the campfire, North Wales 2020.
Ben decided to continue this trend by organising a birthday trip to a region of the UK I’d long since dreamt of visiting; the Lake District. Admittedly my dreams centred around camping out on warm summer nights and swimming in as many lakes as possible, which was going to be at best a challenge and at worst impossible in mid-Winter, but hey- when you’re a January baby you have to take what you can get.
We threw our tent, hiking boots and sleeping bag into the car along with a bag of dry firewood, a jerrycan of water and way too many snacks, and hit the road. It was an all-day drive from Cornwall up to Burnley, a town so centrally located that it sits in almost the exact spot that Great Britain is written across a map. This was our first stop where we’d be spending two nights in a Shepherd’s Hut overlooking the Pennine Way.
It was wonderfully basic, with just a bed, outdoor toilet and no phone signal. We spent our evenings reading travelogues and drinking homemade sloe gin from pewter chalices.
We headed off early the next morning in the direction of the Peak District. I’d be lying if I denied that the single most exciting thing about visiting this area was recreating the drives from Forza Horizon 4, complete with soundtrack blaring over our car’s tinny speakers but minus any ability to drift or even accelerate. And yes, before this trip our only experience of Northern England involved driving around it virtually in a video game, despite us having travelled the length and breadth of Europe.
In our search for a quiet, scenic corner of the Peaks we wound up at Derwent Reservoir. The joy we found on this trip was in doing nothing at all in particular; we simply ended up where the road took us. On this day that entailed cooking up veggie sausage sandwiches on our little camp stove, made into an impromptu cooking set-up on the car’s parcel shelf to shelter from the Northerly winds. We ate them in the front seats while licking sticky barbecue sauce from our fingers and throwing crusts to a group of onlooking ducks. We entered the Peaks over the majestic Snake Pass summit, and left via the equally jaw-dropping Winnats Pass, the emblem of our Peak District National Park sticker. It was a fitting end to the day.
The next day we set out to fulfil one of my longstanding dreams; to see the house that was the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Although it had been mandatory reading as part of my English A-Level course, the image of the windswept building described in the novel had always stuck in my mind, and I wanted to see it for myself. What we didn’t realise was that Top Withens was in fact a 4 mile walk from the nearest car park, a walk we were ill-equipped for. Undeterred we set out, and were treated to panoramic views of pristine moorland and wind-flattened grasses which swirled in umber colours not unlike a painting. I imagined Emily Brontë wandering about these very moors, holding up the folds of her long dress as it trundled over damp bracken and drawing inspiration for her novel.
The remoteness of this farmhouse, in one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, was staggering. Situated next to a spring, and with plenty of wild pheasant about to shoot, eking out a meagre existence here would’ve nonetheless been a difficult task. A full day’s round trip to the nearest village where its residents could trade or sell, devoid of any roads, neighbours or arable land, it was both beautifully and damningly isolated. No wonder it now lay in ruin.
That night began our first challenge: finding somewhere to camp in the Yorkshire Dales. We hoped this would prove easier than in the more popular Lake and Peak Districts, and indeed it didn’t take us long at all to find a suitable spot by a river which undulated through a sheltered valley. The hills around us were tinted pale gold and the water rippled in lilac sunset hues, but we waited until almost dark to set up camp.
Wild camping in the UK is a much trickier business than on the continent, due to almost every parcel of land being privately owned and attitudes towards campers generally being poor. In fact we’d not long set up our little campsite when a shiny Land Rover roared past, blaring its horn all the way down the road. As the temperature dropped to around 2ºC and the grass turned crunchy from frost, we hoped the angry driver would spare us in our thin nylon tent a thought as he relaxed in his warm and cozy house that evening. We cooked up a simple meal of rice and vegetables before burying ourselves in our sleeping bag with one hot water bottle wedged between us.
The Yorkshire Dales were to bring us a true delight the following day, and a newfound appreciation for the beauty of the UK. We rose before dawn to pack up our gear and avoid unwanted attention, braved a splash wash in the icy river and set off. Our first stop was the famous Ribblehead Viaduct, a sight Ben had particularly wanted to see but sadly had no such luck; a thick fog had settled on the moors overnight. Instead we headed for Buttertubs Pass, passing through quaint farming villages of stone houses that looked reminiscent of a scene out of Emmerdale. We stopped to brew a coffee at the top of the pass in bone-chillingly cold wind, but it was only when we began to descend that the sun burst through the fog and laid before us the most spectacular scene.
Endless rolling hills and sloping fields, peppered with traditional stone laithes (field barns), reached far and wide across an otherwise empty landscape, while sunbeams shot brilliantly through the low and ominous cloud. We were awestruck by the untouched beauty of this land, which instantly carved itself a place in our hearts; why had no one ever told us the North of England was so beautiful? We drove through this postcard view as the pass wound its way down and through the Dales.
By midday our bones were still aching with cold, frozen from our nights’ wild camp. So what better way to warm up than a pint by the fire at the Tan Hill Inn? This isolated pub stands solitarily on the moors as the only building for miles around, and had shot to fame just a few weeks before we arrived when its visitors, along with an Oasis tribute band, ended up snowed in for several nights; what a shame, eh?
This was not an uncommon occurrence here at the highest pub in Britain, whose remote location 12 miles from the nearest town had always made it a beacon for weary travellers since its origins in around the 12th century. Weary we were too, but after a couple of hours of defrosting and a hot meal we were ready to make our second attempt at camping out.
The North Pennines AONB was an unexpected addition to our trip, but we’d covered so much ground already that it felt only natural to venture further and see what camping delights awaited us. Unfortunately these rugged and exposed mountains offered no opportunities to pitch a tent on a windy January night, and we ended up at a Travelodge, regrettably defeated but easily consoled by a hot bath and a Greggs sausage roll. The joys of UK travel.
At least we were in the best location to begin the final part of our National Parks roadtrip: the Lake District, where we push our little car to its limits on mountain passes, take a VERY COLD DIP in Lake Wast Water and stay in a beautiful old bow-top gypsy wagon complete with hot tub!