Post 486 - Fundraising for Fabulous Owls - Stage 1

Hey everyone, today's post is a little update.

Where it all started - the walk and, well, me too really!

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was going to do a bit of fundraising to see if I could help the BTO Owl Appeal to raise more money to be able to understand how to help these wonderful but struggling creatures. It's going ok so far. I set a target of £2,000 as I just didn't know what would be a good or realistic target. So far I'm up to £350 or 17% of that target. That's 3 and a half times more than I raised last time I did something like this so I'm pretty happy but hoping to make it much better yet.

Amazing countryside and weather.

So my challenge is to walk the Nidderdale Way, 52 miles around some amazing Yorkshire countryside. I'm doing the Nidderdale Way  because of my connection with the Wild Watch project, I'm its youth patron, and this year they've been doing a lot of work with Owls, so it all seemed to fit nicely.

The first challenge though has been trying to find time to fit it in! I'm not set up for backpacking so I'm doing it with Dad when we can get lifts there and back. Happily this weekend, with the weather being so amazing, Mum was able to drop us off and my Grandad picked us up at the end of the stage.

So late morning we were dropped off by Mum in Ripley. I started with stage 4 as Ripley is a bit special to us, it's where Mum and Dad got married, so I decided to start here. We set off from the castle and headed out into the countryside. The route was lovely, taking in fields, passing through woods, crossing little babbling becks and gently taking us on a meandering route though the AONB. We passed a deserted medieval village which I couldn't make out - I will need to explore better when I have more time, and continued on until we hit our first point for a little break at a lovely village called Shaw Mills.

Heading on to Brimham Moor

We didn't stop long as we had a timetable to stick to as Grandad was under instructions from Mum to pick us up a set time as we had friends coming for dinner. So we headed off on the next stretch which was just as nice through more fields, woods, along streams and passing some lovely places like Brimham Lodge. We followed the route of a Monks Wall and enjoyed the view.

A bit of a surprise find!

Then suddenly as we went through a gate the terrain changed. We were suddenly into the moorland of Brimham Moor. That was the first surprise, the next was quite alarming at first as there was a funny grunting - what was it - well pigs of course! Two of them cuddled up sleeping. Never seen that before!

We passed through Brimham Moor and we could see  a few of the rock formations which Brimham is famous for but we also enjoyed Skylarks flying high and singing and a lovely Fritillary butterfly that was too quick to see exactly what it was.

Some rocks at Brimham.

We'd been enjoying the walk and the scenery a bit too much, taking our time, enjoying the views and the wildlife we saw along the way and time was escaping us a bit so we pressed on and got as far as Glasshouses before we had to get picked up. So I'll have to do the little stretch into Pateley Bridge next time. To be honest though I like stopping, admiring the views and exploring the wildlife so I think it's going to take me longer than I thought!

Thank you to everyone that has donated so far, I really appreciate it and so will the Owls.

If you haven't yet but could see your way to helping out then you can donate on my Just giving page:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/zach-haynes

I'll keep you updated as I do more!

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.