Visit to Berkshire - March 2002 |
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In March, I returned to my old haunts in Berkshire. I stayed with a friend in Wokingham. Bracknell was much improved with the graffiti-covered subways now tarted up with delightful murals.
On the Sunday I was there, I did a long walk with the friend following the course of the railway line to Crowthorne and back.
I had already visited the Maharajah's Well (see right) at Stoke Row in the year 2000, but remembered going past another well on one of my walks. I went searching with my lady friend, Tricia, and located it at Sonning Common (see right). It is not marked on the local OS map, so I don't know its name or history.
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| Maharajah's Well - Stoke Row. | Unknown Well - Sonning Common. |
 | My Uncle was good enough at the same time to take me to see Avebury. I reckon that the stone circle there is even more impressive than Stonehenge. We took in Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow as well (see left). Just as we left the Barrow, it started to rain torrentially, and all the other places we attempted to visit (café at Avebury, Crofton Beam Engine), were closed because it was out of season. |
West Kennet Long Barrow. | |
The Ingleton Falls Walk - March 2002. |
In March, also, my brother, father and I did the famous waterfalls walk at Ingleton. You get two bites at the cherry as you go up the Twiss beck and back down the Doe beck, both in gorges with waterfalls. When you get near the top of the Twiss, there is a café in the middle of nowhere, then there is usually an ice cream van parked in the lane at the very top between the two becks. By the time you get there, you feel you've earned it, as it's quite a stiff haul up! |  |
Family Reunion - May 2002. |
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April was marked by the arrival of Peter, a cousin from Australia. Shortly afterwards in May, his father and mother, Ian and Janet, arrived from Tasmania to attend a family wedding in Scotland. I gave Janet and Ian the ten-bob tour of Silsden and also had a memorable walk from Burley-in-Wharfedale to Ilkley along the edge of Ilkley Moor. To the left you see the whole family assembled at White Wells, Ilkley Moor, a set of cottages that house a Victorian plunge bath. The bath was used for the 'water cure' when Ilkley was a Spa Town.
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