Hawes

The weather forecast looked good for the Thursday of Mick's holiday so we decided, the night before, that we'd spend the day in the Yorkshire Dales. It's somewhere I've written about many times as it's a place we love, we visit often. This time we started off in Hawes which is in Wensleydale.

Hawes Yarnbombers had been out decorating the town with crochet versions of Shrek and his friends.

I just love the expressions on the character's faces, what a great job the Yarnbombers have done. There was a box for donations for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, I hope they raise lots of money for this very deserving cause.

Hawes is a market town in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire. One place we always visit when we're nearby is the Wensleydale Creamery, we're quite partial to cheese and Eleanor always puts an order in too when she knows we'll be visiting. Cheese making in the area dates right back to 1150 when French Cistercian monks first settled in Wensleydale, bringing with them their cheese-making recipe. On this visit we settled on Wensleydale, Fountains Gold Cheddar and Extra Mature Cheddar.

It's an interesting town to look round, as I've already mentioned there's the Creamery there. There's also the Dales Countryside Museum which tells the story of the Yorkshire Dales and the people who have lived and worked here for thousands of years. There's a ropemakers where you can watch traditional ropemaking in progress. There's a few waterfalls in the vicinity, Hardraw Force, Aysgill Force, and Cotter Force. Hawes is a market town and market day is Tuesday, but there's some lovely shops to browse there too. Doesn't the cottage above look pretty with all the plants outside.

After our visit to Hawes we drove over Buttertubs Pass, a high road which winds its way north from Simonstone near Hawes towards Thwaite and Muker in Swaledale, still in the district of Richmondshire.

The road passes 20-metre-deep limestone potholes called the Buttertubs. The story is that as farmers rested at the top of the climb on a hot day, they'd lower the butter they were carrying to sell at the market in Hawes into the potholes to keep it cool, and it's these potholes which gave the pass its name. The scenery from this high aspect is just stunning.

You do have to have your wits about you as you're driving here as there's parts of the road with steep drops to the side, and sheep often wander onto the road too.

The weather wasn't as nice as we'd been led to believe it would be, do forecasters ever get it right? It was okay though, it stayed fine and that's the main thing. A trip to the Dales never disappoints.