Skipping along to Skipton

Oh, all right, cruising along to Skipton. We enjoyed glorious weather today, starting with the morning sun burning off the mist from the canal at Gargrave.

We passed through more rural idylls ...

... and passed by more lovely old buildings (ignore the graffiti).

In Skipton we secured a 24 hour mooring just on the Springs Branch, had lunch and explored the town. It was quite a shock suddenly to be surrounded by hordes of people, many of them tourists. The two Pennine Cruisers trip boats were doing a roaring trade and it seemed that everyone was in a good mood.

We bumped into Martin and Margaret from Erin Mae and met their Norwegian grandchildren.

The Busy Lizzies chippy had been recommended, so we got takeaways and sat on a bench overlooking the junction. I'm sorry to say that I'm not really a fish-and-chip person. It was hot and there were no bones but, in my experience, chippy chips are invariably flabby, not crisp, and this fish was fairly tasteless. To help it go down we walked up past the High Corn Mill and past the old sawmill to the woodland walk and the mill pond at the top (yes, it was calm). Then down to the footbridges over Ella Beck at the foot of the castle.

To round off the day David and I walked to an area away from streetlights and trees (the car park for the Catholic Church!), lay on the ground and stared at the sky hoping to see meteors. David claimed four or five; I spotted only one. I don't think I'll have any trouble getting off to sleep tonight.