Jim's annual trip to Swaledale

I just returned from four wonderful days with my brother Alex in Swaledale.

You can see a slide-show if you click on the link http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh129/jimstevenson2/Yorkshire%2009/?albumview=slideshow

We stayed at our usual place at Usher Gap, but not in tent this time. The midges were too fierce! We slept in Alex's VW Camper; very cosy. (He snores to beat the band, but I don't care. He's better than a million midges any day.)

We really relaxed, with no time-table and no cell-phone contact, we just fished, walked and talked.

The fishing was pretty good this time; rain over the weekend put a bit of colour in the water and it lasted all week. In summer, the Swale can drop to a mere trickle of crystal clear water with a few large puddles for pools. The fish are often un-catchable, even if conditions look perfect.

Actually, on the first afternoon the water looked too thick for fish to see a fly, so we took a walk up the hillside to look for birds, then fished at Muker into the dusk, without much luck really; just one trout each, I think. The next day looked perfect, and it was. We caught and returned about eight each on quite a short stretch, stalking and casting flies to fish we could see rising.

We took a really long walk on Thursday, checking out our old haunts at Keld, Crackpot, Swinnerghyll, Rampsholme and Iveletside. The scramble up the gorge at Swinnerghyll was a challenge, but we were rewarded with views of redstarts, flycatchers, wheatears, a ring-ouzel and a peregrine.

Actually, the campsite was quite a rich spot to bird-watch because we saw woodcocks each evening, peregrines twice, oystercatchers, dippers, common sandpipers, ducklings, curlews, warblers and a black kite.

The weather brightened up through the week and the farmers set-to haymaking. This was an amazingly swift process involving half a dozen tractors whizzing around. One continuously did the cutting, while others followed doing the swarf turning, bailing, wrapping and carting. The result was a pile of big round bales of "hayleage" in black bags. Fortunately, the steeper slopes were left uncut and allowed to carry on producing flowers and seeds. One such spot at Muker boasted hundreds of orchids including spotteds, butterflies and twayblades.

At every turn there was something to photograph. It's amazing how quickly the view changes on even a short walk in the hills.

I feel quite recharged after the trip. It was great to get time with my brother and to touch base with the Dale where we spent so much time as children.