Hawes - Day Three with Red Squirrels and Sheep Dogs!

After that huge walk yesterday, my foot was extremely sore due to an issue that is not serious enough to be diagnosed and treated yet, but every so often it causes me discomfort.  Alan had discovered a leaflet describing a Red Squirrel area and how to get there but I wondered if I would be up to it. Lots of steep walking, again, with less paths and more woods!  Oh what to do.

Solution...walk into Hawes and get inserts for my hiking boots!  Yes, more walking, but it is so close it was worth it. And the inserts were perfect.  So we stopped on the way back to book our place on the Little White Bus to see the squirrels.  Only the bus was full.....and then they thought, why not put on another bus? So, in the time it took to make a phone call, not only were we booked on this, but another family of 6 got the remaining seats and we had a spare morning to wait for the bus trip!

It was nice to have nothing to do for a few hours and we enjoyed this time in our motorhome, editing photos, making lunch, just normal stuff.

Then the bus trip to Snaizeholme Valley!  First time in a moving vehicle since we arrived at Hawes and it was nice to see more of the surrounding countryside.

Arrived at Mirk Pot Farm and started the walk to find these lovely animals and threatened with extinction creatures.  Yes, we have Red Squirrels in Scotland, but not many at all.  Alan was over 40 when he saw his first one and that was on the Isle of Arran. My first sighting of a Scottish Red Squirrel was at Nether Auchendrane just outside of Alloway and that was a few years before Alan saw one.  I doubt there are any more Red Squirrels there though.  They are mainly much farther north now.

The walk is steep and muddy but well laid out and we eventually arrived at the viewing station.  And within 2 minutes, one walked up to the feeding station!  They are so bright and red that they are easily spotted.  Alan pointed out very quietly for me to turn around and one was right behind me on a branch!  I doubt I will ever be that close to a Red Squirrel again and I am pleased to have gotten some nice pictures of her.  Yes, the pictures were clear enough to be able to tell!

We spent about 40 minutes there waiting for these gorgeous creatures to run by and many did.  It was amazing and so much fun.

We had to watch the time because our Little White Bus was coming for us at a certain time and would not wait. No phone signal here so we would have had to walk a long way even to get to a main road!

By the way, the shoe inserts were perfect!  No sore foot at all.  Whew!

Got back to the Dales Museum and our motorhome before heading into Hawes to see where we wanted to eat. This was meant to be out last night in Hawes so we wanted to eat out somewhere and there are so many places to choose from. Or there would be if we were not so early! In order to fit our plans to watch a Sheep Dog Trials Demonstration that starts at 6:30, we were hoping to eat at 5pm.  Most places that we were interested in didn't start serving dinner until 6 and that would be too late.

I am not the kind of traveller that has to look at every menu in every restaurant and then go back and review and then decide.  I cannot bear that sort of decision making for one meal, it wastes so much time!  If anyone travels with me, they might not notice, but I always just say yes. I will find something on any  menu that suits me!  But this night I did have to look around!  I think this was a result of seeing the perfect menu right at the beginning of our quest but being told we were too early.  This was at The Crown and we have eaten there before and loved it so that was a big disappointment.  So we looked at another pub and it looked amazing, but again, too early.  We were referred to the Wensleydale Pantry and it looked interesting, very local menu. Lots of interesting sounding pies and gammon steaks but nothing that excited me.  I have to be wary of pastry and too much rich food....so we went back to the first pub we passed The White Hart Inn.  And they served starting at 5pm, had a super menu and also served Taplin & Mageean gin!  Why didn't we look there first?  Oh, because we shot right past it on the way to The Crown!  Magnificent food, I got sea bass and Alan got his regular Gammon Steak, which did look fabulous, served with a fried egg on one side and a slice of pineapple on the other.  I tell you what, if we ever spend an evening in Hawes again, I will come back here!

Our waitress noticed how laden we were with bags - they were camera equipment since we would not have time to stop at the campsite but had to walk up to the farm where the sheep dogs were being shown. This led us to talk about the red squirrels and she lives in that area!  We even walked by her house!  How wonderful!  And I got to ask her just how she negotiated those amazingly steep hills in Winter. She said she parks her car at the top and walks up, much to the chagrin of her kids when they have to do it also to get to school!

As we walked to Hawes for dinner

On the walk into Hawes, we always crossed this bridge that went over a pasture where two small ponies were kept. I wanted to call them Shetland Ponies but not sure if they really were, looked like it to me.  Every day a new patch of the pasture would be set out for them to eat the luscious, long grass that was there. The farmer would simply move a fence back about 3 feet. The ponies would move in and eat it.  Based on when we walked in for dinner and walked back over the bridge they cleared these patches in less than two hours!

After dinner, well our's anyway, they were not finished yet!

No time for dessert since we were cutting it fine to get to see Mr Richard Fawcett, who has been demonstrating border collies, other wise known as sheep dogs for over 30 years.  He has been seen on various television shows and traveled the world competing and judging.  And we were just a tiny bit late.  He had already started but was still in the introductory phase, talking about his experience, the dogs and what they need to do.

We were too late to stop and really have a look at
these terrific dogs.

He works with 5 dogs and he explained their names! I loved his choices.  He got a pair of dogs once and called them Mick and Keef (If you don't get the connection, ask me later), Mick has since died but Keef is still going strong and was there.  Carly, after Carly Simon. Rafa after Rafa Nadal. And Lola, could not hear him exactly but Alan thinks she was named after a song.  Considering we were in the middle of a windy field and he was simply talking to over 100 people, it is a wonder we could hear him at all.  There is another dog since Mick was not here, and his name was Solar.  The youngest dog, Rafa, was born in February of this year and is still in training, so all he got to do was go around and sniff the sheep after other dogs penned them.  Mr Fawcett works on their instincts to get them to do what they are born to, but it is still a lot of hard work.

Mr Fawcett has 3 sets of whistles for the dogs and trains each one on a particular whistle.  So 2 of them are trained on one type, 2 on another and one on its own, this mix could be different. But the point is, he can only use dogs to work together who are trained on different whistles!  The other thing about these whistles is, when he was much younger, shepherds didn't buy whistles, they made them out of can tops!  What great resourcefulness!

It was amazing to see these dogs in action, whether it was herding 70 sheep that were on the other side of the hill in the field where we could not see them, or when one dog had to sort out 8 particular sheep from the herd.  Mr Fawcett explained how the dogs have to get the sheep through certain fences and how they gain or lose points. It was such an interesting evening and I am so glad we saw that sign and were able to go.

If you look closely, you can see two dogs working together.
The one on the right is almost in the centre near the edge of the  photo.  Just a black spot!

The things we have discovered due to not driving around everywhere like we normally do.  I highly recommend it!