We took our tandem group out for a pleasant afternoon’s cycle along the Leeds-Liverpool canal starting at Saltaire in Bingley then East towards Keighley. It was a pleasant sunny autumn afternoon for our group of seven keen cyclists, all up for a day out in the countryside.
Our tandem bike ride took in the industrial heart land of the Aire valley, passing between old mill buildings, newer transport links and the river of the same name. After an hour or so of gentle exercise, we stopped for a lunch break at Five Rise Locks just after a mammoth of a steep hill at the top of the locks.
Then it was back on the tandems and upstream, passing cottages, allotments and back gardens, only for a short while though until we reached East Riddleston Hall a historic 17th century National Trust manor house with an excellent tea shop.
We discovered this through extensive scientific research into their delicious scones with clotted cream and chocolate and coffee cake, washed down with a healthy amount of tea.
Tandem riders
You can find out more about our tandem clubs on our web site. These clubs also run on weekday evenings in Harrogate and Wetherby and help people with disabilities to access the countryside.
It’s not everyday you see two ten foot owls float gently overhead in a Yorkshire valley, but as our excited feet squelched their way through knee high dew-laden grass, that’s exactly the sight that greeted us in a field near Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire.
When the wind eventually decided to pick up a little, we spent a good few hours sending our Rainbow Delta kites soaring high overhead – making them little more than specks in the sky.
The kite flying community are a friendly bunch too, willing to impart advice on how to fly them and even let you have a go with their expensive kites. One man was kind enough to give us a small kite souvenir of the day that now sits proudly in the windscreen of our green minibus.
Take a look at the photographs below (select a photo to view a larger version).
We completed another leg of the six dales trail this weekend: from Ramsgill, north over Fountains Earth Moor past Leighton Reservoir. This is part of our ongoing challenge to complete the whole of the trail with our walking group made up of Open Country members and volunteers. This section was 7 miles long and took us the best part of the day to complete at a fairly relaxed pace to accommodate the abilities of all members in the group.
After the ascent over Fountains Earth Moor, our guide (and volunteer) Alan steered a course for a hunting lodge about mid-way through the route for us to break for lunch. It was also a chance for Sam to rendezvous with the group, as he had dropped the van off at the finish. So, while we stuffed our faces full of sandwiches, there appeared a blip on the horizon which slowly grew into the formidable shape of Sam making his way over the furze like the returning native.
The trial
In case you’re wondering – the title of this article isn’t a typo, it was suggested by one of our volunteers as a comment on the accessible (or rather inaccessible) state of some of the paths on the trail so far. At some points we’ve been unable to find the path, stiles don’t exist and way markers haven’t been present at all.
Just take a look at the photo of the heather – believe it or not there’s actually a path running through there – can you spot it? Similarly, there’s a photo of one of our members taking on a bizarre assault-course inspired stile near Leighton Reservoir. However, as always, we worked as a team to get everyone over the obstacle – none is too big in our ongoing mission to help people with disabilities to access the countryside. Open Country member Dan particularly enjoyed his ascent over the stile, standing tall and cheering himself on.
On the whole the trail has been enjoyable but there are certainly a few parts which need some attention to make the Six Dales Trail a little bit more accessible.
Leeds Pals
Our walk ended at the Leeds Pals monument on the site of the former training camp for WWI soldiers based in Leeds. It’s an eerie place where the wind sweeps across the moors through linear mounds of earth created by the soldiers as they rehearsed for trench warfare.
Our biannual walking weekend got off to a dramatic start last weekend. We’d just loaded up our to minibuses (including the purple princess) and set sail for the South Pennines when Sam (from Open Country) rang our mobile to let us know we’d helpfully driven off with his bag, including his house keys. So rather than let Sam sleep rough while we were away having fun, we did the decent thing and drove back to return his kit.
Walking weekend group
The walking weekend centred around Hebden Hey in Calderdale and base camp was a basic but comfortable Scout centre with bunk beds in dormitories and a kitchen. We had a total of twenty six people with us including members, their carers and volunteers.
We offer two residential weekends a year which offer our members even more excitement and adventure than our day trips. It’s an opportunity for people with disabilities to access the countryside as well as a chance for everyone to get to know each other better. We share cooking, eating, social activities and it’s much cheaper than other holidays offered by disability-specialists, that means it’s more inclusive for our members living on tighter budgets. Our members’ families and carers get some respite too for the whole weekend we’re away.
Saturday 4th September
The plan for Saturday was a walk up to Stoodley Pike a hill which features a large war monument visible from miles around, as well as giving a fantastic view over Calderdale. We began at Blackstone Edge reservoir and marched up to the monument at Stoodley Pike summit. Then we gave our members a choice of an easy walk back into town or a slightly more challenging longer walk back to the bus – we cater for people of all abilities at Open Country and give everyone the independence and options they deserve.
Squirrel scoffing
Later that same day, Paul (Open Country) was awoken by a strange rustling sound in the sleeping quarters of our base camp. He was in a bunk bed above notorious Open Country member ‘The Squirrel’ (Ian), renowned for his insatiable appetite and constant feeding. By now, it was 1.30am in the early hours of Sunday, so Paul didn’t suspect for a moment that it would be Squirrel grazing. But sure enough, after firing up his torch and leaning over the edge of his bunk bed – there below was Squirrel having a midnight pork pie, which he swiftly concealed as if caught red-handed.
The Squirrel takes tea
Sunday 5th September
We’d booked a tour of Gibson Mill on Sunday, a modernised 19th-century cotton mill which is self-sustaining, meaning it generates its own energy and has minimal impact on the surrounding environment. It was a fantastically interesting attraction, with the only downside being that they don’t generate enough electricity to run a freezer for ice-cream. Everyone knows that Open Country love ice-cream.
It was in the café at Gibson Mill that Squirrel entertained us by dressing up as a posh gentleman enjoying a spot of tea. Take a look at the delightful photograph attached to this blog post.
Monday 2nd August was bat night at Otley Chevin and we had the pleasure of a presentation lead by Maggie Brown from the West Yorkshire Bat Hospital. The fascinating talk gave us an insight into the life cycle of British bats, their habitat and feeding patterns.
Maggie also showed us a live Pipistrelle bat and Noctule bat for us to take a look at which was a great experience especially for our visually impaired members who could touch the animals.
Otley Chevin also have a bat roost above their café with a motion sensitive camera, so we had a look at some Brown long-eared bats in situ, right above us where we were sat.
To finish off, later that evening we took a walk down to the River Wharf with a bat detector which can pick up the high-pitch calls emitted by wild bats.
Do you want to have fun volunteering with us?
If you want to join us as a volunteer or find out more about Open Country and how we help people with disabilities to access the countryside, you should contact us or write a message on our Facebook wall.
Last weekend saw us take to the water at Pugneys Country Park in Wakefield for a fun-filled few hours on the water aboard open-top Canadian canoes.
Our activities were overseen by Mike, an instructor at Pugneys, who supervised the controlled ‘rough and tumble’ of a typical Open Country day out: safety always comes first, but we’re one of the more adventurous disability groups in Yorkshire. There was capsizing and water splashed about on the lake as we rafted up (lining up the boats next to eat other) and took it in turns to swap seats while still afloat.
We took twelve people in total including Sam from Open Country, volunteers and members. Our group was made up of mostly able-bodied individuals but we have taken wheel-chair users out on boats in the past. We don’t see obstacles when it comes to helping people with disabilities to access the countryside and we always try our best to make days out as accessible as possible.
After all that exertion we made our way over to Sandal Castle for refreshments at their café, unfortunately it was closed, but our hunt for snacks soon unearthed a treasure trove of ice cream at New Miller Dam where the day trip came to an end.
Do you want to have fun volunteering with us?
If you want to join us as a volunteer or find out more about Open Country and how we help people with disabilities to access the countryside, you should contact us or write a message on our Facebook wall.
On Sunday 18th July we took on the second leg of the Six Dales Trail, a 6-7 mile day trip through the beautiful Washburn Valley between Swinsty and Heyshaw. Our walking group was made up of volunteers Andy, Loz and Christine and Open Country members Paul, Allen, Roberta, Daniel, Charlotte, Dave and Karl. Sam from Open Country took the same walking group out on the first leg of the trail from Otley to Swinsty Reservoir on Sunday 4th July.
Open Country Walking group on the Six Dales Trail
The Six Dales Trail is a classic ‘up hill and down dale’ walk with excellent views over Nidderdale. The countryside was thriving with wildlife too and we saw lots of Curlews and Lap Wings. We took a lunch break at Thruscross Dam and spent some time watching the canoeists practising below the sluice gates of the dam.
There were some very poorly maintained styles along the route, some blocked with tyres and other rubbish, especially on the approach to Heyshaw which made for an adventurous descent. Thankfully we had help from our volunteers to overcome any access difficulties for our members.
Our pleasant Sunday walk into the countryside wasn’t particularly eventful, but it was a day trip that most would take for granted. By helping people with disabilities to access the countryside on day trips like these, we give our members a sense of independence, improve their quality of life and have lots of fun along the way.
Do you want to join us for a lovely walk into the countryside?
We plan to do the full six dales over the course of the summer, running into October, if you want to join in the fun, you can find out more on our events calendar or contact us.
Monday saw a flotilla of 20 tandems take to the road to mark Open Country’s 20th anniversary: a ‘wheel spectacle’ for any pedestrian or motorist in the North Yorkshire area.
Caption competition: entries on our Facebook fan page please...
We started out at Wetherby for a 20 mile cycle trip with a tactical pub stop at Tockwith. The outing was unique as it included all of our volunteers and service users from our Wetherby, Harrogate and Ripon tandem clubs. Even more unique, it saw Sam, Paul and David, the three pillars of Open Country all out of the office at once, rather than taking it in turns to drink tea at their desks.
The evening was a real team effort and brought our diverse community together to celebrate twenty years of our unique charity and its ongoing mission to help people with disabilities to access the countryside.
You can see a full set of photographs from the event in our Facebook photo album including a particularly flattering photo of Open Country volunteer Barrie.
Over a period of six weeks students from Leeds Trinity University College have been out and about with us, filming our activities as we help disabled people to access the countryside. The four members of the film crew (Joe, Natalie, Katie and Sean) are in their first year of a film degree.
In the video, there’s interviews with Sam, Paul and David (from Open Country) as well as contributions from our members and volunteers. We think it gives a really good summary of what we get up to and how much we enjoy our mission to inspire confidence and independence for people with disabilities. You’ll see just how involved all of our members get, who despite learning and mobility difficulties, crave excitement and risk like everyone else.
Our student friends shot over 25 hours of footage on 10 of our activities and they’ve trimmed it down to a neat 6 minute film. Take a look for yourself:
We’ve just switched over our online donations from Just Giving to Virgin Money Giving.
We think that Virgin give a fairer deal to charities, especially small ones like us: their one-off charge is better than a monthly subscription fee and they take a smaller percentage per donation.
That means more of your donation will go to helping people with disabilities to access the countryside. That’ll help us keep our minibuses on the road for access events and keep our tandems maintained for the Ripon and Harrogate tandem clubs. Take a look at our Virgin Money Giving donation page.
Sam (Open Country) and Jackie Heptinstall will be one of our first campaigns to use Virgin Money Giving when they do the Great North Swim in September at Windermere. You can pledge a donation towards our mission helping people with disabilities to access the countryside, as well as encouraging both of them not to sink.
About Open Country
We are a registered charity based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. We help people with disabilities to access the countryside.
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