Happy school holidays everyone! Hope you are having fun and
still smiling. We had a great day out on Monday. A group of us went to the Cow
and Calf Rocks in Ilkley for some small person rampaging. They are a big rock
formation on Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire. The rocks consist of a large
outcrop (the cow) and a small boulder (the calf).
To be honest, though I’ve heard of Cow and Calf before I’ve never been and
wasn’t really sure what to expect. I duly found the directions, made sandwiches,
went back for the forgotten sun hats, and off we went. We drove and it took about
30 minutes from north Leeds. There is a good free car park that’s well
signposted and cafe and toilets.
It's a brilliant place. The scale really took my breath away, with
fantastic views over the valley and Ilkley. The larger outcrop has shear walls
and rock climbers scaling the rockface fascinated the kids. It is possible to
scramble up the rocks but we took the safer option and followed the path round
to the top. We spent ages wandering about and discovered a stream and
waterfall, played hide a seek and explored some of the many paths through the
heather. As you can see from the picture below, some of children found better hiding places than others...
The kids were a range of ages and the smaller ones (4) struggled a
bit with some of the steeper paths but the older 6 year olds thought it was
fantastic. It's a great place to visit to enjoy some proper Yorkshire terrain.
Though it's not for the faint hearted; I have to admit we used up a couple of
Mr Bump plasters! We took advantage of the large grass space next to the café for
our packed lunches and treated ourselves to a coffee. Then it was home with
happy exhausted parents and kids, a sign of a good day out.
