WHEN law graduate John Coppack decided to take early retirement from his senior position with a multinational healthcare company at the age of 55 he knew what he wanted to do - combine his love of the outdoors with his passion for writing.

And over the past 12 years he has done exactly that, producing a series of guides for walks in the north of England.

His latest work takes in famous scenery from the Lake District, the Lune Valley and the Yorkshire Dales.

The Kendal Limestone Way starts at Skipton Castle and makes its way for 63 miles through the limestone uplands of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and along the limestone escarpments lying between Morecambe Bay and the Lakeland mountains, finishing in Kendal.

Millions of years ago major earthquakes shook the northern Pennines creating massive geological faults and fractures along the southern fringe of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the south-eastern corner of Cumbria.

To the south of the main fault lines is a large area of millstone grit moorland, while north of the fault line lie the porous limestone uplands of the Yorkshire Dales National Park where the hills are higher, steeper and more rugged with towering cliffs of gleaming white limestone.

A limestone landscape is also present in the far south-east corner of Cumbria where precipitous limestone ridges form a barrier between the Lakeland hills and Morecambe Bay

The idea for the Limestone Way came to John, he says, when he was driving along the A65 to the Lake District from his Harrogate home.

"It has some of the most remarkable and dramatic countryside, especially between Settle and Ingleton," he said.

"The terrain lying to the south is relatively low-lying, broken by rounded hills of modest elevation, whereas the land on the northern side of the road is far more dramatic. Here the hills are higher, steeper and more rugged with towering cliffs of gleaming white limestone.

"It struck me that putting together a walk exploring this rugged limestone landscape would be a very interesting thing to do."

*The Kendal Limestone Way is available in ebook format from: iBooks/iTunes; Kobo; Google Play and WH Smith ebooks.