A wish to start walking again, an activity limited for at least a year by health problems, a beautiful sunny day, and discovery of an ‘ap’ for my iPad, tempted me out for a four mile walk on Wednesday.

The map can be scaled to fit the walk to the screen, as here. The blue line is the 4 mile walk, drawn as I walked.

The map can be scaled to fit the walk to the screen on the iPad (Mini3 in my case), as here. The blue line is the 4 mile walk, drawn as I walked. It’s very precise; all those tiny diversions at the beginning of the walk are where I was walking up to the doors of houses to put something in the letterboxes.

The ‘ap’ was myTracks, which not only tracks the iPad and so the person carrying it, but draws the route on a map, continuously records the distance you have done and can be saved for reference later. Points of interest, in my case stiles or other notable points, can be bookmarked. This is the free version. A paid for version has many more facilities but I haven’t yet tried this. My walk was a little longer than shown as the start is about 1/2mile from home; the end, at a coffee shop (!), is a couple of hundred yards.

One of the enhancements in the paid version seems to be ability to take and insert pictures along the track, but without this you can still switch to the iPad camera ap while myTracks continues to record and this is what I did for all the pix below. I’ll probably go for the enhanced version in the future, £2.99 I believe.

A peek over the gate into a garden near the start of the walk – the iPad camera is not ‘good’ enough to recognise the two birds of prey sitting at the far end of the lawn
The mill pond; it often has ducks and geese and the occasional moorhen and other wild birds but not today
One of our favourite local walks is to Bleach Mill House formerly, as the name suggests, where flax was bleached. Now a bed & breakfast, occasional ‘cafe’ (super home made cakes) and a source of great free-range eggs
Sign on the gate from the public footpath into the Bleach Mill House garden – great home made cakes too!
The first stile on the walk. Each stile was bookmarked on the myTracks recorded walk
The second stile, a ‘squeeze stile’ which allows people (if slim enough!) through but not sheep
The third stile , the bar makes is a bit more accessible for people not so slim!
The fourth stile through a simple (‘single’) drystone wall typical of these fields
Some fascinating natural designs made by lichen or a drystone wall
The fifth stile, not a squeeze style but a ‘climb over’
A gate on the path just a couple of yards after the previous stile
A simple ‘plank’ bridge over the stream (beck) which the footpath follows
A rather more difficult crossing of the stream – just some very ‘wobbly’ and slippery stones in the water
The final stile on the walk
A diversion, the rickety gate and ‘cattle tunnel’ under the railway line which I thought might be a better way to cross the line
Further into the ‘cattle arch’ with a style at the far end (but no access to the far side of the rail line to rejoin the walk)
View across the Wharfe Valley to the moors beyond
One of the interesting old buildings seen on the walk, the Well House
My diversion to avoid crossing the railway line eventually joined up with the documented walk, which comes over the railway line on this small bridge