Our drawing of the route, over road and path data from OpenStreetMap. It shows where the walk goes and what it goes through. It is not a survey and not a navigation aid — carry OS Explorer on the hill.
Five and a half miles there and back up the dale on the trackbed of the old Nidd Valley Light Railway and the Nidderdale Way, two and a half hours, level and firm the whole way with no stiles and no climb. Start from Southlands car park in Pateley Bridge and follow the river upstream past the recreation ground; the 24 bus from Harrogate and Ripon reaches Pateley, but nothing runs on to Wath, so this is an out-and-back by design. Because the railway trackbed drains properly this is one of very few Nidderdale walks that stays clean through January, dogs can be off lead along most of it, and the Nidd runs alongside for a mile with several shallow places to get in; sheep graze the fields either side of the track, so recall needs to be reliable.
Two and a half miles over the river and round the hamlet of Bewerley, an hour and a quarter, flat riverside meadow and a short lane climb into the village with a handful of gates and one stile. Start from Southlands car park at the bottom of Pateley Bridge high street, pay and display but cheap, and the number 24 bus from Harrogate stops on Nidd Walk a minute away. The fifteenth-century Grange Chapel sits behind a gate in the village and is worth the two-minute detour; the meadow between the bridge and Bewerley carries sheep for most of the year, so leads on there, but the Nidd below Pateley Bridge is shallow, gravelly and perfect for a dog to lie down in on a hot day, and the riverside path stays passable through winter although it will be muddy.
A small High Street cafe built around an extraordinary range of hot chocolates, with cakes to match. It is dog friendly, which is worth knowing because a good number of Pateley's shops are not, and it sits halfway up the hill for a breather.
A six-mile lap of the reservoir that fills the floor of upper Nidderdale, out along the quiet Wath Road on the west bank to Ramsgill and back down the eastern shore on the Nidderdale Way, with barely 100 metres of climbing and about two and a half hours of walking. Start from the small roadside car park above Wath, a mile north of the Sportsman's Arms; the summer Sunday DalesBus 821 also runs up the dale from Pateley Bridge. Gouthwaite is a Site of Special Scientific Interest full of wintering wildfowl and the shore fields are grazed, so dogs stay on the lead the whole way round and should not go in the water.
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