Leeds; Saturday, 15 January, 2011

An early start as I headed out to the station to make the journey to the pleasant North Yorkshire market town of Richmond. The journey itself was uneventful, if tedious having to get a train out to Darlington and then pick up the bus to Richmond (the other option of catching two buses up through the dales would have been even longer, but considerably cheaper!)

I arrived in Darlington just in time for the rain to start up, and by the time I reached Richmond it had settled into a hefty continuous downpour. I headed straight for the castle to have a look around the exhibition and ruins. By the time I had finished looking around the weather had just about calmed down to a heavy drizzle so I had a look around the town centre.

I had just over an hour to wait for my bus to the next destination, and with the weather picking up in ferocity again, I sought refuge in a pub overlooking the market and had a very pleasant lunch.

I managed to time my lunch so that I left the pub and was able to leap straight onto the bus which then headed off through the dales to the small market town of Middleham. Today Middleham is the centre of the Racehorse training industry in the UK. In the Middle ages, for a while at least, it was important in the running of England. Today it’s spectacular castle is a reminder of that important past.

Having looked round the castle I had a long wander around the town itself, which is really pretty, before it was time to start the lengthy journey back home.

I had looked at turning the journey into a round trip carrying on into Ripon and then back into Leeds from there, but the buses were not particularly frequent, and it would have ended up costing more as the return fare on the train had been almost the same as the single, so from Middleham I caught the bus back across the Dales, taking in the scenery which had become even more stunning than it had been on the journey over as all the heavy rain had started the rivers breaking their banks.

By the time I arrived back into Richmond it was dark, and I had a 20 minute wait for the connection back to Darlington so I had a quick look around the centre in the dark (and wet), before hopping back on the bus.

At Darlington the great British institution of the weekend engineering works was in full force. There hadn’t been any in the morning, but according to the notices, after midday Darlington was the furthest North you could hope to get by train without either a very long detour via the Tees, Wear and Tyne back into Newcastle, or a hefty bus ride up the M1.

Consequently the trains were in a bit of a mess and there were no direct trains back to Leeds for nearly two hours, so instead I hopped on the train that was about to depart and caught down to York, where I changed (for the umpteenth time recently it felt like) onto another train to Leeds.

I arrived back in the city centre just before 8 so grabbed a light bite to eat (the lunch really had been very good) before heading back to the hotel to try and dry off.