River Ribble

It took us a few minutes to locate the right path after lunch in Feizor. Being relaxed and full of good food clearly dulled our wits a little! Eventually we found the route, which follows the Dales High Way long distance path over to the River Ribble at Stainforth. Lovely views again from the top and then a gentle stroll downhill into the valley, punctuated by some rather high ladder stiles and precarious stone step stiles. Those have cantilevered stones right through the wall, and are often slippery and uneven with use. As it says in an article I read: 'All is typically well until you reach the top, when realisation dawns that you will have to pirouette to face the other way before descending the other side, as the stones are the same on both sides.'  Pirouetting feels harder when you're full of Sunday lunch, I have to confess, not to mention the complications of heavy boots, bulky backpacks, a walking pole and my camera!  

Anyway, we successfully arrived at the river in Stainforth, beside the rather elegant old bridge, built around 1675 to span the river instead of the original ford. (Stainforth means 'stony ford'.) People call it a packhorse bridge but it is in fact wide enough for carts, and many true packhorse bridges don't have such high parapets, in order to allow the heavily laden horses to pass across unimpeded.

Below the bridge, the river tumbles over falls known as Stainforth Force. There was quite a crowd of people here and when we neared the falls we realised why. In the autumn, salmon migrate up river to spawn and they leap up the falls in spectacular fashion. We were lucky enough to see several fish attempting the jump, though I found it impossible to photograph them, what with all the spectators and the fact that the fish are very fast and you can't predict where they will appear.  I was frankly astonished to see them, having spent some time here in past autumns and never seeing one. Quite a thrill! 

Downstream of the falls the river becomes calmer, meandering along through meadows. There isn't much autumn colour in the leaves yet, but there are a lot of red hawthorn and rowan berries. 

And so back into Settle, past a couple of old mills that were originally fulling mills and then cotton mills, and nowadays are converted into apartments and small business units.