In this endless summer of 2018, good fortune continued to smile on us...
Ok, that's possibly a bit dramatic. But we were lucky to get our car out of the Castle carpark when we got back to it half an hour after the gates closed!
At around 30 minutes from Burnley, Skipton looked like the perfect place for a family Sunday afternoon out. We had planned to do a full day trip to Mother Shipton's Cave, but the best laid plans of mice and men are often scuppered by Sunday morning oversleeps... and by the time the weekly Lidl run was out of the way, it was 2.00pm. The Good Mother Shipton would have to wait for another day. Anyway, Skipton sounds like Shipton, so it was bound to be similar, and much closer, so Skipton it was.
As it was just a half day outing, it really didn't matter that the walks detailed on the carpark tourist map were all quite short. To be honest, I was still recovering from a brutal 30km+ trudge with a pallet trolley at OITNB during the Friday shift two days earlier. The blisters on my big toes were probably not up to much more than the meander around the extended castle grounds!
Skipton the town, was a little treat - a quaint old mill town on the River Aire, connected to the rest of Britain by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. A hot, sunny afternoon had the punters out in force, packing the pubs and pavements, lending a real 'market day' atmosphere to this historic town. Obviously caught up and carried away by the moment, I even suggested going into the Black Horse pub for a refreshment - oh the decadence!
(ps - btw, the carpark closes at 6.00pm)
