Looking for something to do back in the summer hols, we headed out to Bolton Abbey, near Skipton. As with everywhere these days, you need to book in advance of course, but it seemed like being a nice day weather-wise, and we thought we could do a bit of a walk and a picnic.
Rather than the Abbey ruins themselves, we headed for the walk up the river- the paths are marked one-way for the most part, up the western bank of the river...
to the aqueduct then back down the eastern bank of the river.
Alarm bells were ringing when we arrived though, and the Disney-style looped queuing system for the toilets, that a fair few people were ignoring.
Without wishing to sound too negative or end on a bad note, it stopped being a pleasant experience about mid-morning. We'd booked to go early and it wasn't too bad when it was fairly quiet. But by about 11am, it was more crowded. This wouldn't be an issue were people following the rules for the paths, but when families and couples with massive dogs (off the lead of course) are charging at you, ignoring the one-way signs, then getting angry you're in their way, it stops being fun. Especially on the narrow paths with the steep drops off the side, that was terrific.
By the time we reached the bridge near the loos, Social Distancing was itself a distant memory. Just try to suggest someone was about to be a rude arse and force you into a river to get out of their way, or be told you were a Sheeple for wanting people to stand away from you in the loo queue... I don't know if it was something about the visiting demographic by the middle of the day, but I hadn't heard so many conspiracy theories about the virus in one place before. We gave up on the Abbey and went home, and haven't been back since. It was much nicer in Wales...
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