Thursday 22 August 2013

Embsay Steam Railway and Bolton Abbey.

In Embsay there is a fabulous craft shop (Samuel Taylors) which I love to visit but Embsay is also home to a steam railway museum and you can ride over to Bolton Abbey on a steam train. It was something that I thought every time I visited the craft shop that we'd do but never had. We did attempt it once and I can't remember the reason why but in the end we didn't do it.
So instead we planned a day trip around the steam train and just nipped into the craft shop! My friend Elizabeth came with us and what started out as a cloudy day actually turned into a blissful sunshiney day! I'd looked up the train times before we left and noticed they ran every 45 minutes so we wouldn't have to wait too long in between trains. We had just missed one when we arrived so bought our tickets then decided to go the the craft shop first, we had planned to do this last and only if we had time but it just made sense to go then. We only had a short time as we wanted to be back for the next train. We arrived back to the station in good time and had a nice look around.


It was soon time to board the train, Charlie was very excited!


 
It was a very pleasant journey and would recommend it to anyone. The scenery was beautiful.
 
 
I think the journey was about 20 minutes, it possibly would have been nicer to have a little longer but 20 minutes is plenty for a 6 and 4 year old!
 
 
At our arrival at Bolton Abbey station we decided to eat lunch in the cafe on the platform. We knew the Bolton Abbey ruins were a walk away and weren't sure what the facilities would be like there. We had made the right choice, Bolton Abbey was a good half hour walk away! By now the sun was blaring, still pleasant but starting to feel hot! We reapplied sun lotion before entering the park area where the ruins are. Again I'd looked online before we set off but the ruins totally overwhelmed me. I'd seen pictures but actually being there was quite emotive.
 
 
Charlie and Courtney of course just enjoyed venturing around the ruins whilst I was appreciating that at some point it would have been quite a majestic building.
 
 

The ruins are set in a lovely park area and we had a wander around. At the bottom of the hill there is a lake with stepping stones! Stepping stones with large gaps!! Courtney was desperate to have a go across them but it took all my effort to get Charlie across, we had to jump across some gaps!!


Courtney made do with a paddle which ended up as a full on stripped down swim, LOL!
 
 
Once dressed again we made our way over to the ice cream van, yummy! It was then time to leave and once we'd climbed the hill back to the top we were all totally cream crackered!! We made our way over to the gift shop area to see if we could find out a number of a taxi as Elizabeth and I didn't like the thought of another half hour walk and I felt there was no way Charlie and Courtney would have managed it. They didn't have any numbers but a lady very kindly offered us a lift back, we were so grateful. Once back at the station we were nicely rested and the train was in so great timing. I made my way to the front to take a photo.
 
 
and when I got to the door to board everyone was looking out of the carriage window.
 
 
The journey back was equally as lovely, I think Courtney was feeling very relaxed, bless her!
 
 

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