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2016

9 Jeeps on October 9th
By David Anderton with pictures by Mike Humphreys & Allen Ambridge

At the end of August as the days began to grow short, Mike Humphreys came up with the idea of a Jeep run before the weather turned. Patrick Hargreaves liaised by email with those Jeep owners who are members of the Haworth Home Guard, and others.
 
A date was agreed and Peter Whitaker planned an excellent route with food and watering stops. On Sunday 9th September, 9 Jeeps and their owners, along with family and friends met at Bolton Abbey railway station on a beautiful morning. After coffee & cakes in the station cafe we posed by our Jeeps in the station car park for Allen Ambridge to take our photographs. Peter Whitaker handed out the route maps and we set off in convoy.

We left Bolton Abbey and headed up picturesque Upper Wharfedale on the B6160. After crossing the river Wharfe by the ruin of the old hunting lodge of Barden Tower I had a confrontation with a lycra clad cyclist. He dismounted and stood in the middle of the road in front of our Jeep shouting at us.

I stopped and the cyclist walked up to the front of our jeep and shouted at my wife “that we should be sharing the road!” She told him to “get out of the way” which he did and we set off with the cyclist shouting expletives at the rest of the convoy as it drove past him!

 
The route took us through the pretty Upper Wharfedale villages of Appletreewick, Burnsall, Hebden, Grassington and Coniston. We passed under the imposing limestone overhang of Kilnsey Crag, carved out by a glacier in the ice age. Wharfedale is in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the trees were beginning to turn colour and the valley looked stunning.
 
 
We left the B6160 and turned into Littondale which is a side valley branching off Upper Wharfedale. We arrived in Arncliffe which was the fictional village of Beckindale in the original 1970’s TV series Emmerdale Farm and parked the jeeps outside the Falcon Inn, the original “Woolpack”. We all “watered” in the Falcon which serves excellent Timothy Taylors Ram Tam draught beer. We got back in the Jeeps and climbed the steep hill out of Arncliffe towards Malham Moor. At the top of the hill we all stopped opposite a steep gorge and lined the Jeeps up against a drystone wall so Allen Ambridge could take photographs of us and the Jeeps.
 
 
We continued over Malham Moor with the Jeeps in convoy looking spectacular. Malham Moor is now largely owned by the National Trust. As we made our way down the steep hill into Langcliffe near Settle we had a wonderful panoramic view of Upper Ribblesdale. For a short distance we drove on the B6479 which runs alongside the famous Settle to Carlisle railway line. We left B6479 near the granite quarries at Helwith Bridge, travelled through Austwick and joined the A65 and headed back towards Skipton.
 
 
After a short distance we stopped for an excellent lunch at Elaines tearoom in the little hamlet of Feizor. We parked the Jeeps at the side of the lane and dined outside in the Autumn sunshine.

After lunch we re-joined the A65 and drove through market town of Settle. At Long Preston we left the A65 and travelled on the A682 before making our way across the country lanes back onto the A59 at West Marton. We said our goodbyes and made our individual ways home. 
 
Apart from a couple of minor problems all the Jeeps performed excellently. My GPW broke a nearside rear lower shock absorber bracket. I got a new on from James Rivers at Dallas Autos and my friend Peter Carlisle has offered to help me fit it. Martin Hall had a problem with the exhaust on his Hotchkiss but he’s since told me he’s fitted a new one. I’m sure everyone had a marvellous day, we certainly did.

ADDED 07-01-17 - The following photos are from Allen Ambridge.

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