Crikey! Captain Cook, Cloudless and Clear

Day Thrity-two – York

Today was sunny! I shit you not! There were blue skies, few if any clouds until late on and we went outside without getting wet!

We'd been hoping hard all week for at least one sunny day in York so we could drive down to the coast and today we got our wish. We left as early as was sensible given we all have to use one bathroom ;-)

Our drive took us up over the North York Moors and brought out many jokes about Catherine and Heathcliff, black dogs and Ripping Yarns. The drive itself was beautiful, some of the best driving we've done so far and is something we will always remember. Along the way we passed The Hole of Horcum (or 'Orcum's 'Ole by gum!) as the locals would likely call it, at least in my head if nothing else. I'm not sure what the hell the hole IS (other than a hole in the ground) or how it happened (Volcanic? Meteoric?) so that one will require a little research one t'internet is back.

After an hour or so in the car we reached Whitby on the East coast. It was a toss-up between Whitby and Scarborough and I'm glad we settled on Whitby for a number of reasons... Firstly, Whitby is absolutely lovely. It's busy but not crowded, coastal but not a busy port, and much of it is real picture postcard stuff. We parked right in the middle of town, well within walking distance of everything we wanted to do.

Having done a quick wander through the tourist info centre we walked along the quayside, over a bridge and into the Captain Cook Museum. Cook spent a lot of his youth in Whitby, living in the house that now houses the musuem. It might seem odd going halfway round the world to see stuff about a Captain Cook considering the museums in Sydney but we were curious to get a different perspective. The musuem turned out to be really good, with a lot neat maps, models of the Endeavour and artwork executed by artists that travelled with Cook and Banks.

By now we were quite hungry and had fish and chips sitting on the quayside, watching the oldest working lifeboat in the UK at 73 years (supposedly) doing runs up and down the river on guided tours. If the number of times you yell "73 years old!" makes it correct then never a truer word has been spoken.

From there we walked up The Steps (note capitals) of which there are 199 (I counted on the way back down). The Steps lead you up above Whitby onto the headland, with great views North along the coast as well as of Whitby itself. The Steps were built to provide access to the church and graveyard on the headland and there are benches at regular intervals where the pall bearers could rest the coffins. Quite a few were in use by people who looked like they'd need a coffin themselves pretty soon, me included. For some reason I was feeling rotten, like I'd been on the turps, which is a major rip-off seeing as I've not touched s drop for days. The dizziness was the worst, especially climbing The Steps but there was no way I was going to give in on a sunny day!

 

At the top we walked round the graveyard, reading headstones from people who passed on up to 3-400 years ago in some cases. Many are so weather worn they are completely erased but presumably parish records could tell you who lies where.

Just behind the church is a large open grassy area and (hurrah!) an icecream van. I was still feeing tender so stuck with something basic (as did Anna) but Jenni and James had what I can only describe as "scary 99s". Jenni had some sort of lemon sorbet on hers which is apparently a "Northern delicacy". Jenni made a comment about not eating yellow snow ;-). James went one further and had a "Whitby gothic horror" which is blueberry icecream with the Flake replaced by a liquorice stick.

Our last stop was Whitby Abbey, runied now but still magnificent for all that. Unfortunately I was really starting to feel shabby and didn't go in (James kept me company) but Jenni and Anna did. Jenni took some marvellous photos and even from the outside it looks like a brilliant place to visit. Oddly enough James and I were watching a flight of swallows flying in and out of the abbey tower at the same time Jenni and Anna were inside taking photos of them.

When the girls came out we headed back to the car, via The Steps. Along the way the girls stopped and bought a dress each while James and I kept walking.

Back in the car we had one more (painful!) stop to make. In a previous blog I mentioned how I was going to shut my eyes when we posted all our souvenir catalogues home. In the end I stayed in the car which was just as well. It meant I was sitting down when Jenni told me the postage for three boxes came to GBP155.95. OUCH! I know it was close to 10kg of paper and other stuff but it was mostly sea mail.

The remainder of the drive home was relatively uneventful not to mention thankfully a lot cheaper. We did have some fun trying to get back into York as the ring road doesn't allow us to drive the way we need to from the direction we came from. In the end we drove almost right the way round but as we've learned to say "we saw a little bit more of England than we would have otherwise..."

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to turn to shit again. It has already rained late today as the light went. It would be great if we could have one more sunny day here but I'm not holding my breath.

Cheers,

Millsy