Cycling in The Yorkshire Dales

The second instalment of the photos of my cycling trip at the weekend. Actually I am quite liking the square format.

I did take a lot of photos, which helped me get round the route in one piece I think! It was my first trip out for quite a while so I wasn't very cycle fit, but I think my general level of fitness is OK as I do some form of exercise every day and have been doing quite a lot of running recently. But stopping about 20 or 30 times to take snaps gave me lots of little rests and I didn't feel as beaten up at the end as I usually do ( though I was feeling pretty tired towards the end)

Blubberhouses and beyond

Coming down Shepherd Hill towards Blubberhouses

Blubberhouses, that's a funny name for a place. It sounds like it should be a whaling station, but it's not in Arctic waters, or even, actually anywhere near the coast or waterway.

Where does the name come from?

Wikipedia tells us:

Several suggestions have been made for the origins of the name Blubberhouses:-
From the blueberry: Ely Hargrove's History of Knaresborough.
From the Blue Boar, a former inn.
Early spellings include "Bluburgh", "Bluborrow", "Bluburhouse", (1172) "Bluberhusum". These may come from:-
Anglo-Saxon burh = "fort".
From "Blueberg" = "blue mountain".
Anglo-Saxon bluberhūs = "the house(s) which is/are at the bubbling stream", with a later regularised plural; the -um form came from the Anglo-Saxon dative plural case æt bluberhūsum = "at the houses which ...".

St Andrew's village church at Blubberhouses.

Out of Blubberhouses, crossing the A59, and then up Hall Lane.

A nice barn conversion?

Past Thruscross Reservoir and up the Washburn Valley

Nature.

There's no shortage of free range eggs on this route.

And there's lots of very scenic farm houses too.

And some absolute monstrosities! Who designed this! What were you thinking?

Were you thinking:' I will totally disregard the surroundings. I will have no sensitivity to the environment. I am an architect, a designer, a genius, I will stand out from the crowd'?

I imagine it was one of the people who built all those revolting building in the 1960's. Shame on you.

It's some sort of outdoor pursuits centre.

Contrast that with the simple beauty of an old barn.

More photos to come tomorrow.

What has this web coder coded today?

An-intro

Total: 11 hours 48 minutes

Srorming day, wrote 18, yes eighteen micro blog posts!

Exercise: 11 km run, good effort after cycling yesterday.

Tomorrow: New functionality on a clients site. My pet project.