Across all the route options, you encounter limestone outcrops, crags and pavements, caves, path side springs, shake holes, sink holes and pot holes, water sinks where rivers disappear into an underground cave system, streams re-emerging further down out of other caves, dry valleys which only every few centuries are water-filled, a very steep and dramatic gorge with two waterfalls and an optional ‘wet’ scramble up it – Gordale Scar, as well as the most impressive limestone amphitheatre imaginable – Malham Cove, with its 70m drop and a beck emerging from a cave at its bottom plus a very large area of limestone pavement at its top, as well as one of the largest tarns in the land – Malham Tarn, also one of the very few upland alkaline lakes in Europe.

Malham, where the optional routes split, has four lunch places, sits roughly half-way and can be reached by bus. The paths and tracks are mostly good to walk and easy to follow, but the going can be hard on the feet and knees over time, as a lot of the route follows gravel farm tracks, and other bits cross stony ground.