Ever since I first heard of Malham Cove and the fact that it was only two hours away, I’ve wanted to go. To be fair, we’ve planned it for over a year just as a day trip, yet every day we planned on going the weather was uncooperative and rainy. So seeing that this past Sunday was meant to be sunny and warm, we planned our day to Malham. I’m so glad we did (and wore our good trainers) as the views and landscape were spectacular, and it was indeed a warm sunny day and we even came away with slight sun burns.
If you are headed to Malham Cove and plan to do a bit of hiking around, or even going up the hundreds of stairs to get to the top of the cove, make sure you’re prepared. Bring drinks, good walking/hiking trainers, and maybe a map if you plan to go a bit further. There is a visiter centre near the car parking (it’s £4.50 for the day per car, unless you can find road parking where there are milk buckets asking for £1 donations) and it’s about a mile walk to the actual cove. We brought a backpack picnic to have at the top and after all the walking we were ready for it! It’s pet friendly, as are most of the pubs and hotels in town, but be aware there are steep steps, inclines, and big cracks in the rocks up top so make sure your pup is up for it.
We arrived at Malham Cove around 1pm and left around 6:00pm, which was plenty of time to do some hiking, have a picnic, stop off for drinks on our way home, and of course take a zillion photos. If we’d gotten there earlier, we’d probably done some of the longer hikes, as the higher into the hills you get, the more stunning the views.
On our way back to the car, we stopped off at a little hotel that had a restaurant and seating outside along a river. We grabbed a leaflet advertising what there was to do in the area, and there’s loads! So we are already planning an overnight to come back and do more hiking.
If you want to see an amazing video my friend Charley and her bf took with their drone last year (which also clenched my need to visit the cove) head to her blogpost here. I’ve also never wanted a drone more than watching their video!
Are you familiar with the area around Malham Cove? If so, leave suggestions in the comments of other things to do for our return trip.