A Long Weekend in Leyburn

A Long Weekend in Leyburn

We’d arranged to meet some of the family and their children at The Forbidden Corner near Leyburn on Tuesday, so decided to make a long weekend of it at the lovely Cow Close Farm campsite. The journey over on Saturday morning was beautiful, with loads of water in the Dales becks, making for some spectacular waterfalls on the way.

We arrived around 3pm after a quick stop in Leyburn for a pub lunch at the Black Swan. The site was quite busy but we were soon pitched up and chilling in the event shelter. We’d brought the bikes with us so we had a quick pootle down the road to the Pheasant Inn to get our bearings. Unfortunately, the pub don’t open until 7pm in the evenings, so there wasn’t an opportunity for a beer. Instead, we popped across the main road into Harmby, locked up the bikes and walked down the track to the Harmby waterfall.

We enjoyed a relaxing morning on Sunday, before cycling to Tennants Garden Restaurant for lunch with our friends, Geoff and Dave. It was great to catch up and the lunch was excellent.

On Monday we cycled to Middleham, where we grabbed a pint outside the Richard III pub, before visiting the castle, then heading on to Leyburn for a cup of tea and a scone. The route is very hilly and even though we’ve got electric bikes these days, it was still a struggle, particularly as my bike’s battery almost ran out before we got back to the site.

We were up early on Tuesday to get packed up before heading to Leyburn for breakfast, then onwards to meet up with family at the Forbidden Corner. This is a great place for kids and adults alike and even on a sunny weekday in August it wasn’t too full. If you’ve got kids I can thoroughly recommend it, but don’t forget to buy your tickets in advance as you can’t just turn up.

The drive home was spectacular, through deep dales and over steep hills, with cows on the roads and sheep in the fields. Perfect – have I mentioned that I love Yorkshire?