Great Outdoors: The Secret Beach

Amongst the hills around Todmorden, West Yorkshire is a not-so-secret patch of sand that is being referred to as 'the secret beach'. It's formally known as Gaddings Dam, and whilst it is up out of sight - it's not exactly a beach. Nevertheless, it's certainly worth a gander. The Dam is located at the top of a very decent trek up a hill. When I say trek I mean TREK. Although, we did go the long way around so probably got it worse than others.

But once up there, it's an ideal little sun trap and because you climb down onto the beach/dam you're totally shielded from the wind. Perfect! You have to be mindful that the beach is really miniature, if you're taking a huge group you might not all get on the sand comfortably.

Neverthless, I was keen for a walk that day as we were childfree. Hiking up the hills, in the mega wind maybe wasn't the brightest idea - but we had the most hilarious time. We lost the trail, obviously this is me, so just ended up getting pissed off and instead of following it around the hill we just went right up the side. It was like a full of free climb, going spiderman up a steep peak of a hill - grass mounds, loose rocks, boulders, the lot. Including the wind. Did I mention the wind already? Nearly took my sister off the side of the hill...

Great Outdoors: Ingleton Falls

So I decided to start sort of documenting/reviewing outdoor locations that we go to - with or without the kids - just to keep track of things really and try to always go somewhere new.

This one day I had a rare day of annual leave from work. On annual leave I'm always torn being actively "doing nothing" (am I right?) and wanting to get out and about. I have internal battles of knowing I need to rest - body and mind, but also getting FOMO (fear of missing out) on the outdoors. Ultimately the motivation to get outdoors is bigger than the acceptance of needing to rest.

I'm trying to branch out with the walking trails and visit as many new places as possible - whilst acknowledging that on this particular day I couldn't go too far in case the parenting calls as the kids weren't with us. So we searched for somewhere, and decided on Ingleton Falls. I wasn't sure what to expect, it's a 4 and a half mile trail with waterfalls along the way. Check it out here: http://www.ingletonwaterfallstrail.co.uk. We had tried to visit here before but reviews advised it is not pram friendly - and they weren't wrong!

The falls trail cost us £6 each per adult, which included parking, and took us about 2 hours to walk around. The weather wasn't up to much, pretty sure it rained at one point, but there were less people there. I took some snaps just for reference. There were some benches along the way if you needed a rest, and some pretty decent picnic spots! Some of the cliffs didn't have fences around so I would be really cautious with children who are runners!!

My camera skills leave a lot to be desired, but I'm still learning. I will have to go back and take new pictures along the way and update these.

The waterfall trails was a nice, refreshing walk. If you want more than a stroll but not quite a full on hike - this is your happy medium.