IT'S often said York turns its back on the Ouse, but take a walk along the banks and you will see a very different picture. There's always something to do: dogs to walk, bikes to ride, geese to be fed – just don't tell the council about that one.

Rowers are busy, too. Some in training for Yorkshire's premier 'Head Race' on March 14, where 150 crews will race against the clock for 5,100 metres downstream from Rawcliffe Landing to Lendal Bridge.

York boat has also shaken off its winter covers and already the open air seats are proving popular. Like the footpaths, the boat quickly slips away from built up York, along tree-lined banks, past grand riverside houses, before turning round at Millennium Bridge.

The bridge was opened in 2001 and forms part of the orbital route for York, completed ten years later. It's also a key link in the Sustrans National Cycle Route from Manchester to Spurn Head. Perhaps that's why the bridge was inspired by the spokes of a bike wheel.

Supplies for Fulford Barracks were once brought in by river at this point. Look closely on the eastern bank towards the city and you will spot the remains of a narrow-gauge railway. There used to be a rope ferry here as well.

Talking of bridges, York has nine across the Ouse and 16 over the Foss. Blue Bridge is easily the prettiest. More Dutch in style, it was constructed in 1895.

York Press: Blue BridgeBlue Bridge

Two Russian cannon, captured during the Crimean War, were positioned at each end until 1941 when they were removed, scrapped and reused for the war effort.

Of the city's grand bridges, Lendal stands where another rope-ferry once operated; the one used by Florence Nightingale when she visited York on her way to Castle Howard in 1852.

Skeldergate was built as a toll bridge between 1878 and 1880, with a small arch at the east end designed to open and allow tall ships access to the quays leading to Ouse Bridge. The last tolls were collected in April, 1914.

You can't move for chocolate box pictures in York, and, like this classic view of Lendal Bridge, they always bear repeating.

That said, it's more fun looking for the unusual, and who'd have thought a modern waterside apartment block would offer inspiration?

But it does when the sun strikes at the stroke of noon to produce a shimmering abstract reflection in the water. Add one seagull and hey presto, a most unusual river picture.

Words and pictures by MATT CLARK.