Luci’s diary: finding out how much fun travel can be

Luci’s Diary. She’s discovered the delights of travel. And the joy of the car – which takes you somewhere great whatever direction it’s travelling. 

Late May 2015

Travel – wow – it’s just great!

Now, I didn’t always like the car. Got to admit that. My number 2 human even had to clean up a bit of – well, how should I put it – regurgitated material on one of my early trips. But I soon learned to enjoy it. 

The thing is that it takes you to nice places.

The humans find me a bit odd, because I’m always so keen to jump into the car, at the end of a walk as much as when we set out for one. But, hey, it makes sense. I like the places we go to walk, and I like home. So obviously I like going either way. And because the car always takes me walking or home, I like the car.

On the other hand, you can get too much of it. We had hour after hour the other day. By the end, frankly, I was getting a bit fed up. But then we turned up in this most fantastic place. It’s in Yorkshire, and I’ve decided that Yorkshire is God’s own County. I’ve decided that because it sounds good, even though I don’t know just what a County is, let alone God. Still, there’s nothing you can say about Yorkshire that I’d think was too nice.

First of all, you can walk, and walk, and walk. We stayed in a place called Malham. There’s grass all over the place. With loads of new things for me to get to know – sheep, for instance, and rabbits – and lots of crows to chase. Wonderful.

And there’s lots of water. 

Water – such fun when it behaves and stays still.

Well, of course I already knew about water. I’d seen it in my bowl, where it’s useful but a bit dull. Then you get it in other places where it isn’t dull at all, but nasty and tricksy. Streams, for instance. The water never stops moving. It tugs at you. It swirls at you. You can’t trust it at all.

Well, near Malham’s there’s this great place. It’s called the Tarn. That’s a patch of water that behaves itself like it should: it sits still. So you can go in and jump about and have fun. And, boy, it’s fun. What a blast.

And back in Malham itself, there are other great places. Pubs, for instance. Where they actually want dogs to come in. Fantastic. There was a character in one of them who decided that what he really, really wanted to do was share his meal with me. He gave me half his hamburger. See what I mean? God’s own county.

Now that’s what I call a friend

We had such a good time in Malham that I was really happy to get back into the car. That surprised the humans again – “if you like this place so much, how come you’re happy to go somewhere else?” They’re a bit slow sometimes.

Look, the car took me somewhere I really liked. So it was obviously going to take me somewhere else I’d really like. What’s so hard to understand?

And I was right! We went to Scotland, and there was a small human in the place we stayed. Wow. I really like the small ones. And this one kept trying to train me, which meant doing things like sitting down or coming over to her. Those were things I wanted to do anyway, but training means you get treats for doing them. Fantastic. It was wonderful getting her to do what I wanted.

But there was more water. Another kind. So big. Salty too – no fun to drink. And, wow, does it move. Worse than a stream. It has these waves, right, and they break on you. You might be sniffing at the water, and one of them sneaks up and makes this great, cracking noise right over your head before drenching you.

And that isn’t the worst of it. It chases you up the beach! Appalling.

Still, we had fun all the same. A good trip. Really liked the people. Really liked the food. Really liked the places. Why, to be honest, I even quite enjoyed the water, though it was a bit scary at times.

And then: joy! We got back into the car. And we went home! Magical. Amazing. 

The car’s just fantastic.

Going back to a good place, decades later.

Years and years ago, with two of my school fellows and I, with our sports teacher as guide, set out to walk the first 82 miles of the Pennine Way.

It occurs to me that there may be a few people out there who are unaware that the Pennines are the range of noble hills that run up the middle of England. Note that I carefully used the word “hills” before anyone could leap forward with corrective mockery at my use of the word “mountains” for anywhere in England.

It was over the Easter break from school. Most years we’d start training for serious hiking in the summer term, after our return from that holiday. So we set out on this walk hopelessly under-trained. That became painfully clear when we tackled an area known as “Black Hill”, and believe me that was a terribly understated name. The mud was knee-deep, like a film of the First World War. The only way we got any purchase on the ground was once we’d sunk deep enough to reach the ice. By the evening we were all groaning masses of stiff joints and pulled muscles.

Limestone pavement at Malham.
Brilliant. Though a little more sun would be good.

But we struggled on through the pain and on the third or fourth day received our reward. We came out out onto a strange landscape of limestone that had been eroded into blocks separated by deep crevices. Despite our tiredness, we jumped from block to block to the edge – and stopped gasping, looking down a sheer cliff into a bowl through which flowed a stream, way below us.

Malham Cove, with Malham Beck flowing out of it.
Grat place. Though a little more sun would still be good.

“Where on Earth…?”

“Welcome to Malham Cove,” our well-informed guide told us.

A place of great beauty, that I appreciated to its full worth once I’d recovered from the vertigo.

The place that most impressed me, however, was a little further on. Nestling among a ring of hills, restful though never quite at rest, there’s a sheet of alternating blue or grey, the upland lake called Malham Tarn. Of all that five-day hike, it was Malham Tarn that I remembered the longest.

All this happened a long time ago. For years, decades even, I’d wanted to go back. And wanted to show the place to my wife. So when she suggested that rather than drive the whole way to Scotland last week, we should break our trip and spend the night somewhere, we quickly agreed that Malham would be a good place for it.

We got there just in time to watch the sun setting over the Tarn. If you’re going to take a wander up Nostalgia Lane, and don’t want to be disappointed, it makes a lot of sense to get there at that magical time.

Malham Tarn at sunset
At least the sun shone through at the last gasp of the day

We spent the evening in Malham village, where my wife insisted on our doing a pub crawl. Which in the end was fine, since there were only two pubs. So it was a pub crawl where the only excess was its moderation. It’s just as well, since to get back to the place where we were staying we had to cross a narrow bridge across the Beck, and fortunately we were in a reasonable state to face that task.

One of the pubs even had an open fire, welcome in an English May in the hills. And both welcomed dogs and even muddy boots – a cordial gesture.

The following day we wandered around the Cove, across a limestone pavement and, eventually, down to the waterfall at Janet’s Foss. 

Janet's Foss.
Janet, it seems was a Queen of the Fairies.
And as Fosses go, hers is a good one
Though a bit more sun would do no harm

As breaks on a longer journey go, it would be hard to recommend a better one. A little more sun would have been good, but we didn’t miss it that badly.

If you don’t know Malham, and the Yorkshire Dales to which it belongs – well, you could do a lot worse than take a look. Just as long as you don’t want absolutely guaranteed sunshine, anyway.