This is an old favourite, and somewhere I’ve been visiting since I was a little un. I never realised it was called Surprise View until I started photographing for customers here, and at that point I noticed all the Otley Chevin car parks have a different name 😂 Surprise View is a popular spot for watching sunsets, and admiring the vista which looks over the town of Otley. These days its our go-to place on a sunny evening out with the dogs.

The entrance and car park for Surprise View can be found at LS21 3DG.

The upper ridge (where the view is) has clusters of rocks which are great for climbing or just sitting and soaking up the view. We let our dogs off-lead here as do many other people, but I do keep a close eye on them when they’re on the rocks. Thankfully they don’t seem to interested in going too near the edge and its pretty safe all in all, but I’m always extra careful if there’s any kind of drop near where we’re walking! From here you can walk down into the forest or along the trails in either direction. It’s super steep though and gets really slippy in or after wet weather.

After a mooch around, we sometimes go to the ice cream van (anyone else share a 99 with their dog?!) or across the road to The Royalty. This is a dog friendly pub and has a great beer garden where you can watch the planes coming in and out of Leeds Bradford Airport. I’m so glad this is open again, as I used to sometimes go as a little kid, and have happy memories of it. It did close for a while but its back open now, and last time we ate there the food was good too.

You can find details for all of the areas of Otley Chevin Park here.