Tuesday, 2nd September            POLKINGTON

Robyn writes: A lovely sunny start to the day with the sunshine streaming through the beautiful circular stained glass window in our bedroom. I took advantage of the nice weather to put on a first load of washing after breakfast. It's lovely to be in self-catering and have the joys of your own washing machine, and Helen had left a note to say feel free to use the clothesline in the back yard.

Our lovely bedroom with stained glass window

After I'd put the washing on, we headed up the street (about a minute's stroll) to the weekly market. We really enjoyed looking around at all of the stalls, plus we went to the local shops such as the deli, butcher and baker to get some groceries for our stay. It's always lovely having the chance to chat to the locals. Lex ended up with two bottles of "Bad Kitty", a local vanilla-flavoured porter (he has since tried it and reported that it is very nice). We wandered home with our purchases to put the kettle on for a cuppa and enjoy the baker's cakes for morning tea before hanging out the washing. I put on another load, then Lex went out for a walk around town while I headed for the Co-op's main shop in town to find the remaining milk and other groceries we hadn't got in the main street. Pocklington is a beautiful little town and is your classic little English township. Some lovely shops to explore! When I'd got everything, I headed home, meeting Lex just as we were both walking in the gate. We had lunch, then headed out in the car to explore Yorkshire a bit.

We drove first of all to Whitby, about 70km away through the North Yorkshire Moor National Park. This took us up high and through some amazing scenery - the heather is mostly still blooming and lovely and purple. Whitby is a seaside town - very popular and full of tourists. No parks so we couldn't stop, and kept going south towards Scarborough. We'd been hoping to stop at Ravencar, a National Trust place with sea views and walking paths we'd read about in the Trust book, but didn't see the sign to it we'd been promised. We did pass a Trust sign to "Coastal Path", and now think that must have been it. Not very helpful! By now it was heavily overcast and there was a fog rolling in, so we possibly wouldn't have seen much anyway....

Beautiful scenery on the moors

Although it's now autumn, a lot of the heather is still blooming

So we ended up in Scarborough, and like the Qld version, it's a seaside town - obviously originally Victorian, and there are still lots of lovely big Victorian buildings there. We stopped at a seaside cafe for me to get a takeaway cuppa, and looked at the seaside. Very overcast and about 16 degrees. Not very welcoming! We kept driving around the point and into the bay, which was also full of tourists. We almost got a park...but someone came right up behind us and Lex couldn't back into it! And that was our last chance. So we kept driving, and came back to Pocklington to the south via Burton Agnes, Market Weighton and Driffield. We got home around ten to six. It was quite a lot of driving but we did see a lot of Yorkshire, including the moors and The Wold. We've looked up 'wold' - it means a high forest (though in fairness I'd have to say that there's not much forest left!)

A beautiful day at the beach - Scarborough

Victorian seascape in Scarborough around the bay. Note the castle complex on the top of the hill!

For tea we had lovely Yorkshire sausages from our friendly local butcher. With onion and mushroom gravy, they were delicious. For dessert, strawberries which were on special in the market this morning. So far, Yorkshire is meeting all of our expectations!