Harewood House Estate

A pleasant sunny day, no rain or wind. A drove us out for a walk on the Harewood House estate. We turned into Wike Lane where we usually park up in the lay-by. I have never seen so many cars parked on this stretch of road. So busy!

We walked back to the main road, crossed the busy A61 to the gates from where there are grand views across parkland toward the house. We turned North on the permissive path through woodland that runs parallel with the road. We saw many fallen trees, some magnificent ancient ones finally felled by Dudley, Eunice or Franklin. The path was impassable in places, wellies or walking boots required. After a mile or so we left the walled path to walk the short distance on the main road to the next estate entrance where the Muddy Boots cafe car park was also rammed full! Here we stopped briefly to watch 11 red kites wheeling around and I envied a photographer with a super lens to capture the birds flying low overhead. This was the busiest stretch of our walk, meeting crowds of folk with baby buggies, ugg boots, cups of coffee. We crossed the cattle grid into the deer park. Here we took in the views N toward Harrogate then W toward Ilkley. We didn’t see the deer I guess too many visitors today. We crossed back over the grid, a show of agility, and retraced our steps back to the car. My activity trackers informs me we covered four miles.