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A group of ten of us met this morning at about 10.30 at map ref. SE 786585 a kilometre out of Bugthorpe on the road to Kirby Underdale on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds.The grass verge is wide enough here to park off the road. The weather was grey and overcast but it managed to stay fine and there were even occasional bits of blue sky. We set off along the road towards Kirby Underdale and after about 1km. we took the path across the fields on the righthand side of the road into Kirby Underdale village just over 1km away. In the village we stopped at the post office/shop to get a bottle of water (forgot to bring one from home!!) and continued along the road to the church. I think the tower of the church is Saxon - it has an interesting semi-circular arched doorway at one end. We followed the path through the church yard and across the fields to Manor Farm at Uncleby. Here we turned down the road for about 150m and took the path to the right passing below Woodley Farm where the ewes had just started lambing.The theme for today's walk has to be spring what with new born lambs, snowdrops, yellow aconites, and hazel catkins. The path took us west below Mount Pleasant Farm and out on to an unfenced lane. We walked up the lane for almost 100m and turned left onto a path across the fields to Lower Sleights Farm. Here we walked up the drive to the imposing gateway with its lifesize dog statues on top of each gatepost. At the gate the path goes round the side of the buildings along a bridleway which unfortunately is well used by riders and is very difficult to walk amongst the mass of waterfilled muddy hoof prints. We followed the muddy track south for about 0.75km. and then took the path west for about 1.5km to the road. Where the path joins the road the signpost has a marker proclaiming "The Chalklands Way" - Ramblers Association, but I have been unable to find any mention of it on their web site. We walked along the road towards Bugthorpe for about 800m to map ref. SE 768582 where we turned right onto a path along the edge of a field for 300m where we turned left to cross three fields to the road. We walked 200m along the road away from Bugthorpe and turned left onto a path which we followed for 1km passed Keldsike Plantation to the A166. We crossed the main road and followed the footpaths around the field edges in a loop to avoid walking along the main road to map ref. SE 779565. We crossed back over the A166 and walked up Barr Lane back towards Bugthorpe. After 800m we turned off the road to follow the footpaths over the fields to primrose Hill Farm next to Longbowers Plantation. The dog there runs loose and sounds quite fierce but seems to be well trained and knows his boundaries. We walked down the farm road back to our starting point on the Bugthorpe to Kirby Underdale road. The whole route was about 16km. and took us four and a half hours including a couple of stops. It proved quite a tiring walk in the slippy muddy conditions. This sort of farm land is not the kind of country I really like to walk in, so next week I'll try to head back up the dales if the weather forecast is OK.

Snowdrops and yellow aconites beside the road near Uncleby	Hazel catkins
Cat resting in the yew hedge at Kirby Underdale church	View into Ray Dale from our lunch stop above Opendale Beck

© 2012 Frank M Firth
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