Belonging - My Best View of the Dales by Adam Rutter

I was driving along a narrow road through the rolling Yorkshire Dales. I somehow had a feeling of belonging in spite of my first visit there. I felt at home in this beautiful county.

When I arrived, my first port of call was the pretty market town of Settle where I embarked on my epic train journey along the Settle and Carlisle line, so that I could get a better view of the dales. As my train pulled out of the station, I had an elevated view of the town. I watched stone buildings slide away, replaced by pastureland interspersed with high peaks and undulating fields. The panorama was interrupted as the train went through tunnels and cuttings, but it was compensated with a vista of the dales from tall viaducts along sections of the line, not to mention the most famous of them all – the Ribblehead Viaduct. Rising high above the village of Ribblehead, the viaduct provided me with stunning views of the Yorkshire landscape with the platform shoe shaped Ingleborough peak towering from my right and the rolling fields stretching as far as the eye could see. 

My train went through dramatic scenery in the remotest part of England where becks and rivers have flowed through this ancient landscape for many millennia, long before humans arrived. Some stations along the line are far-away from villages. The most cut off stations were surrounded by fells and heathland. The train stopped at two towns on the way. After leaving Garsdale station, the first town that I stopped at was Kirkby Stephen. By this time I had left Yorkshire and crossed the border into Cumbria. I left Kirkby Stephen and the dales. The second town my train stopped at was Appleby. I continued to my destination. My journey ended in the Scottish Marches, and so it is also where the Settle and Carlisle line ends.