Clifton Backies Path in a Terrible State, February 21st, 2023. This Outdoorsy Stuff 2023-04-02 | No Words.Well, except these: the Clifton Backies Path extends 600 metres from Woodland Chase to Sutton Way, and is a vital connecting link in the Foss Path, linking Clifton Moor with Osbaldwick and ultimately to the University. It needs fixing, Big Time. But there is an unseemly standoff between York City Council and Clifton Backies Management Board as to who should pay. While this carries on, the residents and all the commuters who use this essential backbone route are being stiffed. It may be that as many York residents use this path as are using Water Lane in fumes belching vehicles. We certainly don't want to see many of these users transferring back to Water Lane, so The City needs to invest commensurately in its Commuters and Citizens no matter their choice of transport.
Semerwater and Raydale, Illuminated by Ella Pontefracts Observations This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-09-06 | Semerwater is one of Yorkshire's 4 natural lakes. It is perched up in the valley of Raydale, a minor branch of higher Wensleydale. Ella pontefract lived there in the the 1930s, and she wrote an engaging account of the dale and its people. Here is some of it.
Blubberhouses Bypass Open ... ish. As of August Back End. This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-09-01 | THe long running saga of the Blubberhouses bypass is reching a rescendo of excitement. Te middle section is open, with chicanes at both ends to limit the speed and capacity. On the Eatbound sie you get a really good long view of the mysterious golf balls at Menwith Hill. More and more people will start finding out what they are actually about.
Blubberhouses Bypass Can *You* Detect Any Progress?? This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-07-14 | Apart from a few extra inches of blacktop over the middle section it looks like all meaningful progress is at a standstill. When they said it is delayed till later in the Summer, I didn't imagine it was because they planned to do no work in that period. Is it a standoff over demands for extra money do you think?In particular there is no visible progress at the top and bottom join points since at least May.Yellow box shows June, Red box shows July.
We Went to Hutton-le-Hole This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-07-01 | We went to Hutton-le-Hole and walked about a bit. It was a nice day and these are family snaps. Scott Joplin's Entertainer is generated by MuseSore and sounds respectable.
The Isle of Arran has Mystery (mysterious standing stones) and wonder (Eons of Geology) This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-06-27 | We had just the one day on Arran, taking the ferry from Ardrossan. It was murky to begin with, but turned out lovelier later. You can get round the whole island in a few hours, but don't forget to see the circles and standing stones at Machrie Moor, the Museum of island life at Brodick, and the magnificent geology of the mountains.
Blubberhouses Bypass Progress: Comparing June 14th with May 30th This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-06-22 | Not yet the final episode of the 3 year long saga to revitalize the East-West A59 corridor at Blubberhouses.
The Monsal Trail A Peak District Gem This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-06-10 | We found a good day to ride the Monsal Trail, from Hassop station up to Miller's Yard. Great scenery, interesting industrial era history and all that fantastic limestone with 300 million years of history.
The Enigmatic Valley of Rocks: A Devonian Mystery This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-06-02 | The Valley of Rocks is a stranded dry alley extending from Lynton in Devon. It's a popular tourist feature, with outstanding walking and scenery. But how did it come to be? This is a little exploration of that story.
Great Beauty Conceals Great Faults: The Yorkshire Dales This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-05-24 | The Craven Fault system has created a lot of the well-known features of the Yorkshire Dales landscape on its Western front, from Ingleton to Skipton. We are taking a journey Eastwards along the North Craven Fault, with a diversion to include the Middle Craven Fault. We'll see famous features like Malham Cove, and other beauties such as Smearsett Scar and Troller's Gill. The thumbnail picture is a limited edition print of Smearsett Scar, that inspired the series of walks leading to the creation of this video.
Blubberhouses Bypass Progress: April-May 2026 This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-05-11 | Top end. They started some taarmaing. also built a nice sandstone garden wall.
They Started Tarmacing Blubberhouses Bypass! April 2nd 2026 This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-04-05 | The long running Blubberhouses Bypass realignment has been under construction since Autumn 2023. It has now reached the tarmacing stage. There are still connections to be made at top and bottom ends. And of course they have to put up all the usual street furniture and road markings. It does seem on track for the planned June opening though!
Antisocial Peat burning at Blubberhouses Bypass This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-03-12 | This was Tuesday, March 10th. The farmer decided to burn the Heather at the top of Blubberhouses, with the wind blowing directly at the Bypass Construction Crew.It was unpleasant enough driving through it. Let it alone having it blowing steadily into your eyes while working in an already difficult environment.
Blubberhouses Bypass opens *New* Recreational Possibilities! This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-02-17 | Blubberhouses Bypass is approaching completion, during the Summer of this year. When they close the existing road alignment it will remain in place, and it should be available for walkers and cyclists to use, for several decades, short of a serious landslip occurring. As far as I can tell, Yorkshire Water is the owner of the whole watershed, and they are usually permissive about walkers on 'their' land. Several routes up and down Hall Gill should become available for us to enjoy. Especially if we agitate for it, early and often.
Blubberhouses Bypass Full Length, from the Bottom Up This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-02-15 | Well in spite of 3 months of solid rain, good progress is being made on the Blubberhouses bypass. The full sweep of the carriageway n now be seen, and the slope grading and tree planting are done. You can see where the snow line stops: comes in from the West and about a kilometre in to the Hall Gill side Yorkshire's famously dry and balmy climate takes over..Music is Intrgalactic, by Alex Jones on YouTube Studio.
The Story of Ronda is a Story of Plate Tectonics This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-02-12 | The town of Ronda, Andalusia is built on top of a slab of rock, bordering a 100 metre cliff face over the valley. This piece of rock was emplaced about 20 million years ago when Iberia was separating from Africa - at the reopening of the Mediterranean Sea. There is a paper in Tectonics magazine that discusses the latest investigations into its origin. The paper is titled: "Deformation and Exhumation of the Ronda Peridotite (Spain). Here is the link: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tect.20062
Wait till you see the Engineering on the 5700 years old Dolmen de Menga! This Outdoorsy Stuff 2026-02-05 | **If you find the yootoob generated subtitles irritating and inaccurate, you can switch them off by going into your settings. The Yellow ones are mine, part of the video. The other ones yootoob thinks are beneficial for your viewing experience.**Dolmens are grave sites, some of them elaborate passage graves, and with Geographical or Solstice alignments. They are known from the Mesolithic onwards, and can be found from Greece, on through Spain, up through France, Wales and as far North as Maes Howe in Orkney. The engineering on the 5500-5700 years old Dolmens in Andalusia is mind-blowing, with millimetric precision involving hundreds of tons of rock. The Dolmens of Brittany are older, still enormously impressive. The dolmens in Wales are smaller in scale. One feels that the climate played a role in the time our Welsh, French and Spanish ancestors devoted to their constructions.Here is an all too brief discussion of Dolmens in Anglesey, Brittany and Andalusia.Music is the suitably ethereal 'Dreams of River Ganga', from the YouTube collection.
Blubberhouses Bypass Progress: Top End December 2025 This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-12-29 | Comparing the progress at intervals from November 2023 each year through to the present, December 2025. No work started in 2023, through to a comprehensive alignment and road bed, and significant drainage work at the intersection with West End road. But why not connect to West End aout half a mile further East, where the smaller road turns North towards Thruscross.
The Pilgrimage of Grace: Robert Aske and the Humber Crossing This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-12-28 | Robert Aske was diverted by the Lincolnshire Rebels, quickly co-opted and he crossed the Humber back into Yorkshire to orchestrate and manage what was to become the Pilgrimage of Grace, a Northern .rebellion in opposition to the King's diversion of the fabulous monastic resources to his own ends. He grew up in Aughton, East Yorkshire, went to Gray's Inn to become a lawyer and became the most consequential historical figure who is most obscured
The Pilgrimage of Grace started in Louth on 1st October 1536 This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-12-15 | The vicar Thomas Kendall gave a sermon on the degradation of the true religion by Henry's new Protestant establishment, and against the King's commissioners, Leighton and Lee, who were sizing up all the smaller monasteries in the North, to be dismantled. The subsequent rising translated across the Humber, and was a tragedy in 3 parts. This is the start of Part 1.
Blubberhouses Bypass Progress, December 11th, 2025 This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-12-14 | Bottom End: because there was nowhere to park at the top, since the West End road access is Sisk Contractors only. Anyway, there's a fair bit of progress at the Fewston End, and those parallel arrays of pins look a lot more like slope stabilization than tree planting. It's going to be an interesting road to drive when finally completed, but the wind will blow down it unchecked, so it won't be fun for cyclists on those days. (it looks like a walk/bike track is going on the North side: let's see when it's fleshed out a bit more).Music is a Walking Bass version of Giant Steps, by Jay Unger.
Heptonstall, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. But mostly Heptonstall This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-12-13 | Ted Hughes wrote a poem about Heptonstall, which was an exercise in minimalism: the rain, the wind, the stone graves, the stone houses, the stone streets, the persistence. It's quite deadly. Sylvia Plath is buried in the 'new churchyard'. Graves in the old one go back 500 years. Here's a tour through the village.Music from Band-in-a-Box, 'Angel Eyes'. Plus relevant voiceovers from me.
Kilnwick Percy Madhyama Kadampa This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-11-26 | Used to be a stately home for a minor branch of the all-Northumbria-powerful Percy family It went the way of all those stately homes that relied too much on low-paid servant staff. After some years of ruin it was acquired by the Madyama Kadampa Buddhists and is now a spiritual centre. A better use than housing the aristobuggracy I'd say.Turns out it did not play a role in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, though they marched on the Wold behind, and restored the small Priories of Nunburnholme and Warter.Music is Moonrise, by Reed Mathis, from YouTube Studio.
The Blue Mountains in New South Wales look like the Grand Canyon, but with Trees. This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-11-13 | Three Sisters. No intentional resemblance to my actual three sisters. These are 300 million years old. Also, an interesting deposit of sandstone at Leura Station.
In Plan the River Washburn looks like a Python that Swallowed 4 Alligators. These are the Reservoirs This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-11-11 | Leeds gets its water from the serial damming of the River Washburn, which flows from above Blubberhouses into the Wharfe below Otley. Well, it's attractive. How much more attractive was the Virgin Valley?Music is Jomon Grove from YouTube Studio.
A Satisfying Minute of the Flying Scotsman Chuffing up and down the North York Moors Railway This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-10-30 | All ambient sounds: who needs a soundtrack when you have this elemental force chuffing and clickety-clicking.
The Hodder: 17 Miles and 300 Million Years of Consequential History This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-10-26 | The Hodder is at the Centre of the Kingdom, and it has been a participant in many of our Nation's dramas, from the Fall of Rheged, through the Creation of Amounderness, and later Lancashire, to the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Lancashire Witches, the Civil War, Tolkien's Lord of the RIngs, the English Clearances, and as backdrop, 300 million years since the gritstone Fells were formed. It remains a very quiet beauty spot to this day.Music from YouTube Studio: Cosmic by Lish Groves.
Sydney Harbour: The Bridge, The Opera House, the Ferries! This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-10-11 | One of the wonderful things about Sydney is tooling around the Harbour on the Ferries: the Manly Ferry, the Parramatta Ferry, and all the other little Coves and Wharfs, all starting out from Circular Quay, and all with brilliant close-up views of the Opera House and the Bridge - which is the same as the one in Newcastle, but bigger and with people crawling up and down the top arch. Don't think they do that in Newky.
Top Roping at Almscliffe Crag This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-09-03 | Almscliffe has long been a popular spot for climbers. It was a good day, not too windy so it's an attractive spot for flying around it too. Almscliffe is an outcrop of the Pendle Grit (as on Pendle Hill), topped off by Warley Wise Grit. These sands came down a river 320 million years ago, and current estimations are the original source was East Greenland. This was after the Rheic Ocean closed, and 100 million plus years before the Atlantic Ocean started to open.Music is Swing Have n 1, by Reed Mathis, from YouTube Studio. No apologies for reusing this fine piece from another video - one of the York series.
Two Trains at Levisham Station This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-08-31 | The view over the North York Moors Railway from the Newton side. Diesel trains today because of the "increased fire risk". Which was rather mitigated by the sudden, sodden rain. It started mid-flight.The fires 5 miles to the East weren't visible at all.
Blubberhouses Bypass update August 2025 *and* the Parlous State of Thruscross Reservoir This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-08-25 | Nobody working on the Bank Holiday weekend, so flying over the Bypass project was unlikely to bother anyone. Some progress at smoothing out the road bed. Usually we get images of Fewston reservoir, downstream. This time I looked up at Thruscross, higher up on the RIver Washburn. Looks like it needs an awful lot of precipitation to refill it. Nothwithstanding, they are still letting water out, as Fewston and Swinsty reservoirs must still be watered.Music from YouTube studio.
Skirfare is the Loveliest River Name! A look at Littondale, gem of the Yorkshire Dales This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-08-17 | It's all in the title. We had a good day. You can enjoy it too!
The Real Difference between Britain and America This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-08-17 | Our attitude to the right to walk anywhere. In Britain we have public footpaths that have been in use for centuries, millennia even, including the right to walk across land that is actively farmed: for livestock and meadows, and scrubby uplands. This comes with the responsibility not to destroy a farmer's crops or scatter their livestock, of course. America has 3 million square miles of land, but only a tiny fraction has designated footpaths, typically in National and State Parks. Farmers do not welcome you to walk on 'their' land. Indeed, they all have guns and you might very well get shot. Whereas we in Britain just walk in the fields in our daily lives, I never in 25 years saw any sort of access to 'private' farmland in the USA. And yet, up till 1776, the Native Americans were walking everywhere. What happened to their paths and their rights?
Up a Tree on Lord Mayors Walk for 3 Months, but it Still Flies! This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-08-06 | When I was filming the York Around the Clock sequence I needed to do some close in shots by the Minster. May 2nd was a beautiful morning, and I got Micklegate Bar, Nunnery Lane, King's Pool, and was attempting a backaround shot by the City Wall at Lord Mayor's Walk. Mini3 ended up backed into a tree. It stayed there for 3 months and 2 days until Storm Floris brought it down. gently to the ground. After some cleaning, fixing the prop, and unstucking the gimbal . . . it still works!
Ravenscar on the Yorkshire Coast Path and its Complicated Jurassic Sequence This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-08-04 | William Smith, father of Geology took his protege and nephew John Phillips on his investigations of the rock sequences of England. They settled in Yorkshire and did all the early mapping of the Yorkshire rocks, from the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks on the coast through to Ingleborough in the West and the Carboniferous sequences of Limestone and Millstone Grit, and the mysterious basement at Ingleton. We walked the coast path Scarborough to Ravenscar examining the British Geology map en route.
Coldstones Cut in Yorkshire Grit! This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-25 | Interesting art installation up the top of a windy moorland between Nidderdale and, well also Nidderdale. YOu come upon it when you drive from Grassington to Pateley Bridge. It is almost always cold and windy up here. But very pretty, in its austere gritty way.
The Bainbridge Screw This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-19 | The village of Bainbridge in Wensleydale, North yorkshire sits on the river Bain. There is enough flow to power an archimedes screw that provided electricity for half the village. This is it.,Music is a Walking Bass version of All the Things You Are, by Jay Hungerford#Hydroelectricity #Bainbridge #Wensleydale #Yorkshire #YorkshireDales
Prospects of Clitheroe Castle, with Pendle also Appearing as a Wuthering Height This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-17 | Videoe June and July 2025.This complements the CLitheroe Town Wells video. Here the views of the Catle are from distant prospects around and outside the Town. Pendle always seems to get in on the act. Longridge Fell, and Bowland Fells also appear. As does Worsa Hill ('Wussa') which we ran down in the filming of Whistle Down the Wind.#Clitheroe #Castle #Pendle #WutheringHeight #Kurosawa #RibbleValleyMusic is a chord sequence reminisxcent of Joscho Stephan's 'Made in France', but produced on Band in a Box.
Blubberhouses Bypass Progress at the Top End, July 14th, 2025 This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-15 | Coupla days ago I did a video from the Fewston End. A lot has changed over the entire length of the Bypass project. This gives a view at the top end, and comparison with July 2024 and March 2025.#Blubberhouses #Yorkshire #YorkshireDales #Skipton #A59 #Harrogate
Blubberhouses Bypass Update July 12th, 2025 This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-14 | Fairly significant progress since the disaster days of Spring 2024. The course and grade of the new A59 section is substantially in place, the rechanneling of Hall Beck completed, and the connection to the old A59 at the Fewston side, with the connection to West End road have become clear. This video shows the current status, as well as some flashbacks to 2024 and through 2024 showing the development of the Eastern section.#Blubberhouses #A59 #Skipton #beautiful Music is Denver Blues by Track Tribe from YouTube Studio.
Wandering Americans look at Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire and compare them with Arches National Park This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-08 | Actually Arches National Park is formed of only 65 million years old sandstone, while Brimham is Carboniferous in age, the rocks being 322 million years old, and they came down a big river that was ultimately sourced in North East Canada, after the Iapetus ocean closed and before the Atlantic ocean opened. Brimham is sitting on top of limestones that formed at the Northern shore of the advancing Avalonia 'terrane'. Anyway the subsequent wind erosion and glaciation effects leave a formation that is very pretty for us humans in this geological epoch. But they'll wear away in time anyway. #YorkshireDales #Carboniferous #BrimhanRocks #Yorkshire Music from YouTube Studio.
Staying in a Real Castle! Appleby-in-Westmorland This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-04 | Really the North Pennine area gets overlooked in people's rush to get straight to the Lake District. But the hiking and the scenery are in no way inferior, and the trails are very quiet. The walk up to High Cup Nick is on the Pennine Way, it is itself the best view in England, and there were 3 other people when we were there. Contrast with Helvellyn, where sometimes you can't get into the shelter at the summit it is so full. And Striding Edge: you can hardly move for walkers eager to do it. When you do come climbing up here on the Stainmore - Teesdale watershed, you can come back down into Appleby and stay in some fine B&Bs or stay in a real Norman castle, as renovated by Lady Anne Clifford in the 1600s (and more recently by the current owner. So you don't have to hang your nethers out over the garderobe any more).#PennineWay #HighCupNick #Appleby #SettleCarlisleLine #NormanCastleMusic is Totality by Lish Groves, from YouTube Studio.
American Expats Continue their North Pennine Adventure to High Cup Nick: the Best View in England! This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-07-02 | We went up High Cup Nick, above Dufton on the Pennine Way. While The Yorkshire Vet always apparently claimed that the view from Sutton Bank over the Vale of York was 'the best in England', he had clearly never visited this on the other side of the Pennines. Unquestionably the best view in England! An 8 mile round trip hike, if you manage to park at Bow House before the Pennine Way track turns bumpy and upwards. The valley of High Cup Gill sits on the Skiddaw slates of Ordovician age, with the younger Ravenstonedale group (Silurian?) above, and the visible Yoredale group the dominant rock. The Great Whin Sill intrudes to give the valley its 'ribs', which were exposed by the recent Ice Age to give the classic glacial trough. Details of the Geology are best seen on the excellent BGS Geology Viewer web site.#PennineWay #HighCupNick #NuwaraEliya #TeaPlantations #SriLanka #WhinSill Music is 'Love or Lust' by Quincas Moreira from YouTube Studio.
Sri Lankas Secret Fast Bowler at Galle Fort Cricket Ground This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-06-29 | Galle Fort with its array of antique cannon overlooks the International Cricket Ground. Sri Lanka were playing Australia in January 2025.#cricket #GalleFort #SriLanka #Australia
Plumpton Rocks is way more astonishing than Brimham Rocks! Yorkshires Secret Places This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-06-25 | Plumpton Rocks are formed of the "Plompton Gritstone", laid down about 322 million years ago towards the end of the Carboniferous era. Some opinion has it that these are shaped by wind, "like Brimham Rocks", but it's much more likely that the last Devensian ice sheet, up to 15,000 years ago, scraped its way down them creating the shapes you see now, and laying down a thickness of glacial till. The end result for us fortunate humans is a beautiful place to visit. Turner painted it, when he swung by Yorkshire in the late 1790s.. On his way to do Fountains Abbey, one suspects.No music, just ambient sounds and some textual description.#PlumptonRocks #Yorkshire #BrimhamRocks #Romanticism #ArchesNationalPark
Displaced Americans Marvel at the North English Pennines: You can just walk in the Countryside! This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-06-22 | All in one in a journey into Upper Teesdale, passing Eggleston Abbey, Barnard Castle (and What a Castle!), and Low Force and High Force (and What a Force!), with the very bijou Summerhill Falls and a fine tea shop at Bowlees visitor centre. Plus cool sound effects!
Pendle Hill, Clitheroe Castle, Low Moor Spire: a Celestial Dance This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-06-13 | There's a picture in the Apricot Meringue cafe in CLitheroe that shows an alignment of Low Moor Church, Clitheroe Castle and the Big End of Pendle. It is taken with a very long focus lens from out on the Bashall Eaves road. This is an animation of that same picture, taken from 6 metres above the River at Edisford.#ClitheroeCastle #PendleHill #Clitheroe #lancashire
Three Wells and a Castle: Clitheroes Ancient Town Wells This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-06-13 | Before 1854 when the reservoirs were created on Grindleton Fell, Clitheroe's water supply came from just 3 Wells: Heild Well, St Mary's Well and the Stock Well. The Wells are still there, as historical features of the town, but two of them, Heild and St Mary's have note been 'adopted' by the town. That's not so good if there is vandalism, or deterioration to the structure. BUt it's a Good Thing if you want to fly a drone from them, as ther is no registered 'owner' to grant or withhold permission to Take off and Land!There is now a movement to try and get the Borough Council to adopt these Wells, and we should probably support this campaign, for the future of the historical environment.#ClitheroeCastle #PendleHill #Wells #Northumbria #lancashire Music is Walk through the Park by Track Tribe on YouTube Studio.
A Memoir of Growing Up in Chatburn in the 60s This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-06-13 | We did exciting things like daming the local stream, lighting fires under little crags, running off down the fields, and down the the Rive - TheR Ribble. We swam in there too, and it wasn't so clean back then either. Grew up on St Chad's Avenue, Chatburn. I had occasion to visit the graveyard of Chatburn Church a couple of months ago, and it was very sobering to realize that many of the people I knew when I was growing up are in that churchyard. Including some from my generation. The general configuration of the countryside is still the same, however.#Memoir #Ribble #Chatburn #StChads #TheMill #TheVillageBrook #lancashire No music, just #voxhumana
From Huntington Church to Lord Mayors Walk: York Around the Clock, 00:00 oclock This Outdoorsy Stuff 2025-06-11 | Some very pretty views of the Foss entering York, the last agriculture in the City, the view towards Nestle/Rowntree and their KitKat wagons, and to the Wall at Lord Mayor's Walk. Stonking huge view of the Minster at the end.#York #Minster #Rowntrees # #FossRiver #yorkshire Music is from YouTube Studio
