What about Whitby? 8

Runswick Bay turned out to be the surprise highlight of our Yorkshire trip, a crescent-shaped bay fringed by golden sand with an old fishing village at one end and cliffs pockmarked by caves at the other.

The road coming down the steep hill funnelled all traffic into a couple of car parks, leaving the village itself traffic-free.

Instead of having streets, the village is a maze of steps, narrow paths and dead-ends.

I noticed most of the paving stones are outlined in paint

and many of the houses have white-washed sun terraces for gardens, which reminded me of Greek island villages.

That, and the fact that the houses are stacked one upon another up the side of the incline, so each has its own sea view.

Practically all the houses are holiday lets and there were an awful lot of electric wires, PVC windows and satellite dishes that intruded on what otherwise felt like a time warp back to olden times. It only took about 15 minutes to explore most of the village, save for the uppermost reaches.

Back on the seafront and there is a pub plus a couple of cafes and shops, otherwise there is little to keep visitors occupied aside from the glorious stretch of sand, the walking opportunities, the boating, that splendid sea view, the abundant fresh air..actually, a week here would make for a relaxing holiday, so we made a promise to come again to linger longer on another trip.

For now though we kept walking, along the sandy beach, past the 'hobgoblin' caverns and to a cleft in the cliffs where a brook had carved through the shelves of shale and out to sea.

This was our path back up to the top of the cliff via a series of steps that took us up the hillside and into a beautiful glade filled with blossoms and butterflies.

 Each time we stopped to catch our breaths the views over the bay seemed to get better and better.

Atop the cliffs was a jumble of farm houses and an old railway station for a stop called Kettleness, long since abandoned.

Back roads took us away from the seaside through fields of bright yellow flowers

through lovely lush countryside and into the village of Lythe.  

The pub here was shut, so we carried on to the town's church which sits on a prominent position above the sea with views of Whitby on the horizon.

The body of church was largely rebuilt in 1911.

As the builders dismantled the ancient church walls, they found an abundance of stones carved by Vikings, including a massive stone coffin which serves as a rather morbid flower display.

The church has an excellent series of interpretive panels about the discovery of more than three dozen carved stones, all about 1000 years old. The Edwardians piled the stones in the churchyard and it was only recently that the stones have been cleaned and the best specimens brought indoors for display in the church.

One of the stones cleaned in 2007 revealed a figure that the locals have called 'The Gingerbread Man' who appears to be torn between vicious animals.

I dubbed him 'Mr Bill.'

A short walk downhill from Lythe and we reached yet another lovely village, Sandsend.

From here it was probably only another two miles to Whitby, but by now the sun was low in the sky and the wind blowing off the sea was strong. Instead of facing the cold wind, we waited a couple minutes and caught the next bus into Whitby in time for the sunset. And you know how I get twitchy around sunsets...!

A rough idea of our 7-mile one-way route is here and a plethora of sunset shots are on the way soon.

What about Whitby? 7

Another day in Whitby, another day for a walk! After clocking up the miles to Robin Hood's Bay and back, we felt entitled to cheating a bit and saved our bloody stumps by taking the bus a half hour up the road for the start of our next ramble along the seaside.

Staithes is yet another old fishing village along the Yorkshire coastline, but in an even more spectacular setting than Whitby or Robin Hood's Bay. Much of the town is huddled into a ravine, hiding behind cliffs from the sea.

And for good reason too, as storms over the years have washed away a number of buildings on the seafront.

Staithes has suffered a lot over the years and not just because of Mother Nature. Its fishing industry has dwindled a great deal (although the harbour has more boats than Robin Hoods Bay). Its days as an artists colony are long gone as well. We passed several empty shopfronts, a derelict pub and only a few other sightseers. Many houses appeared to be holiday homes, which also take their toll on what little life remains in town.

Having said that, there were a handful of pubs, cafes and art galleries which seemed to be doing decent trade that day.

Unlike Robin Hood's Bay, Staithes is much more accessible by car and has a larger harbour which can accommodate beachcombers and fishing boats alike.

The only thing which detained us was a half pint at The Royal George, which had a varied menu that looked quite good, although it was too early for lunch and the whole place was in need of a clean.

Elsewhere in town is a small museum in a former chapel. Among its exhibits you can learn about the young Captain Cook, who was an apprentice here in a shop that has long since fallen victim to a particularly fierce storm.

Behind the seawall and away from the harbour we found the trail leading up out of town and onto the clifftops.

Only a mile to the north at Boulby are the highest sea cliffs in England...crowned by the chimneys of a mining operation that produces half the country's potash. So instead we headed a mile south to Port Mulgrave.

Passers-by might expect another charming fishing village, but in fact this was only ever a tiny harbour used for shipping out the iron ore mined from the cliffs surrounding it.

Its sea wall was dismantled during WWII in case any Germans wanted to sneak into the disused harbour and launch an invasion. These days it is home to a collection of fishermen's huts and plays hosts to fossil hunters.

Only an hour's walk further along the edge of the sea cliffs and we arrived at the top of Runswick Bay. Like the other fishing villages in the area, there is a new town atop the cliffs and an old town next to the harbour.

We had a pub in mind in the new town, but they had no ale on offer so we crossed the road where a woman had set up some tables and chairs in her front garden.

We had sandwiches, salad, coleslaw, crisps, tea and scones for about £12 which was a bit dear considering the size of the portions, but in a lovely setting with a friendly hostess. From here it was literally straight down to the bay.

Click back next time for a look around the charming old town, the brilliant beach and more countryside rambling on our way back to Whitby!

What about Whitby? 6

What better way to work off those pies and pints than a 12-mile hike? Whitby is surrounded by prime walking country: with non-stop sunshine and 70 degrees the entire week of our stay there was no excuse to sit indoors. With a few hours to spare, there's no better excursion than to Robin Hood's Bay, the next town along the coast south from Whitby.

The coastal walk is easy to follow (just keep the sea on your left!) and not that strenuous, with little change in elevation along the way. You might wonder if you've taken a wrong turn when you enter a large holiday park not long out of the shadows of Whitby Abbey, but follow the signs through the caravans and soon it's nothing but sea, surf and grassy clifftops for the five miles or so to Robin Hood's Bay.

The walk takes two hours and, to be honest, it's a bit dull in parts. What little access to the sea involves so many steps down that you'd have to be rather fit and have plenty of time to spare in order to take a detour down to the shore. Keeping to the clifftop path, there's only a lighthouse

and a shipwreck along the way to break the monotony,

but depending on the time of year there's an abundance of wildflowers,

plus the views of the awesome abbey ruins.

It's all worth the effort when arriving in Robin Hood's Bay, a small town with a tiny fishing harbour squeezed into a fissure at the bottom of steep cliffs.

As a fishing port it once rivalled Whitby hundreds of years ago.

Its remote location also made it a favourite bolthole for smugglers, who were said to use a series of tunnels linking the towns' houses to evade tax officials and offload gin, silk, tea and other booty into wagons waiting atop the cliffs.

These days the clifftops are crowded with Victorian villas converted into B&Bs, but the older town down below is a delightful warren of ancient stone cottages.

The labyrinth of passages which helped the smuggling operation in days gone by succeeds in keeping the lower town largely free of traffic.

There is hardly room to turn around a car at the bottom of town in front of the tiny harbour. That day it was the best spot in town to sit down with an ice cream or fish or chips,

but the harbour is also the end of the famous Coast to Coast Walk, where hikers who have crossed the spine of the country from St Bees Head in Cumbria come to dip their boots into the North Sea.

Aside from a few pubs and shops there is not much to occupy your time in the town, but it's well worth wandering around the narrow lanes as you'll never know what you mind find, such as this whale's jawbone.

Climbing to the top of town, we found the Victoria Hotel, the lawns of which offered a lovely panorama over the town and out to sea. They served up delicious sandwiches, salad, cakes and tea which were a bargain at £13 for the pair of us, with wonderful views to boot.

We took a different route back to Whitby, following the 'cinder track' which is all that is left of the old railway that once ran through here. This was even more flat and level route than the clifftop walk, with high banks or hedges along much of the way which served as a windbreak. Ideal on a wet and windy day, but this prevented us from enjoying the views on this sunny afternoon. One of the old stations along the way rents out bicycles and there's a large church just off the path,

but the main highlight for us was reaching the old railway viaduct which crosses the river above Whitby. We arrived right as a tour boat from town was turning around in the river below.

Back in town after crossing the railway viaduct, it was time to celebrate completing our 12-mile roundtrip with a pint at The Station, but we took it easy because we had more walking planned for the next day. Click back again!

Witch way from here? 2

By now it was late afternoon and the light was mellowing. The sky was still clear, a breeze tickled the leaves of the oak tree and swallows swooped about. We had camped near a tiny brook and a tree on the other side was breaking down with apples.

A couple of kids splashed around in the stream, picked some apples, chased the hens, played ball and generally made a nuisance of themselves. Despite this, I willed them on, hoping they would overexert themselves, collapse in heap come nightfall and sleep in until at least 6 or 7 the next morning.

As for us, it was time for the Calf’s Head pub, about a mile back down the road in Worston. A wedding party was in full force and we had to give our names to the chap on the door to wait for a free table in the dining room. This gave us time to walk around their extensive gardens which had a tremendous view of Pendle Hill lit by the setting sun
 
and a family of ducks paddling in a stream out back (mother duck had  about ten ducklings in tow).

The pub had four real ales on tap (Black Sheep, Jennings, Brains and Moorhouses at the time) and the wine list touted a dozen English varieties. The food on offer was classic pub grub: meat pies, burgers, lasagne, etc. They had sold out of the turkey, leek & stilton pie so I had steak & mushroom pie instead while Christian had the lamb shoulder. Both came with peas, carrot mash and steamed new potatoes. We struggled to finish our huge portions. It was delicious and we certainly got our money’s worth, well recommended!

By now it was completely dark outside, although we managed to pick out the outline of Pendle Hill against the orange glow of the towns behind it. We fired up our £1 torch and followed its dim beam down the back roads, dodging fresh cow pats and keeping an eye out for any deranged ghosts of Pendle witches.

This is when the dreadful realisation kicked in, that this was it: this square bit of stretched nylon in a field was to be our home for the night.

It took some acrobatic manoeuvrings in order to get into our sleeping bags. My pair of earplugs which I had carefully set atop my pillow had disappeared and no amount of LED light from the wind-up lantern could pick them out. The pillow turned out to be as substantial as a ball of lint. The sleeping mat provided all the comfort of corrugated cardboard. I must have passed out from sheer exhaustion at some point, because I remember being wakened by a gale whipping through the trees. Sheep bleated, dogs barked and before we knew it, dawn broke.

The toddlers in the tent across the way were up with the larks, stomping about and whining like a right pair of candy-asses. About half 7 and the sun hit our canvas so we had to get up or else be steamed alive, thanks to all the condensation dripping off the nylon. Dew dripped off the tent ceiling and down our necks as we performed more gymnastics in order to get dressed. We unfolded our spoons and ate our muesli.

Time for a morning constitutional, which turned out to be a 5-mile stroll. This time we went over the lower slopes of Worsaw Hill to the village of Chatburn,

crossed fields to a fairytale packhorse bridge,

returned to Downham and followed back roads to the campsite.

By now it was warm, sunny, but hazy. We dried off the tent, packed up, managed to fold everything back into our rucksacks and loaded everything up onto our backs. It was then a 3-mile walk through cow pastures and across the highway into Clitheroe where we caught the train home with seconds to spare. A rough idea of that morning's 8 miles of walking is here.

Maybe we were delirious from the fresh air, maybe it was the delicious crumble we made from the apples we’d nicked, but despite the sleepless night we decided to give camping another go. Click back soon for our Yorkshire adventure!