As a child playing outside the village school, I was once bowled over by this diminutive Severn-type bore, which can suddenly, but thankfully rarely, belch from the bowels of Doukghyll Cave. That day, the caves in the limestone rock were brimful after deluges on Penyghent crouching above; the “mountain lion” of Yorkshire’s Three Peaks country. Back in our “Just William” days, the beck was an alfresco lab for us schoolkids. How it all returns as I stand, wellie-shod, in mid-stream, stirring slippery beck-bottom stones with my trekking poles. We used to collect them in jam jars to study, then release them, but now they are a species in need of protection.

Source: The Guardian November 29, 2016 05:31 UTC