Monday, 9th June LOCKTON -
WHITBY
We’ve had a wonderful day today! We slept well in our new
house in Lockton, and I woke up around 7.30. We had our usual toast for breakfast
before heading out to today’s destination, Whitby. In 2014, we’d driven through
Whitby, desperately looking for a place to park, but it was August, and parks
were not to be had! Things have improved greatly since, though, as the council
have installed a Park & Ride, much to our joy. It was only a 21-minute drive
there, and we set out just after 8.30. We continued along the A road we’d come
in on yesterday, and before long plunged down into a valley, then up again onto
the moors – a very sudden change of scenery and vegetation. The moors lasted
almost all the way into Whitby, which is a port city on the River Esk.
We were lucky enough to find a bus waiting for us, and the fare in for both of us was only 5 pounds 40; the parking was free. Very quickly, we were dropped off in the Flowergate of the city, and walked down the hill to the medieval town. It was rather like the Shambles of York; lots of winding, narrow streets with adorable little shops. Lex did a detour into a rather more modern one, however – his poor old faithful backpack had started literally coming apart at the seams, and a large area was fraying away at the zip. So, sadly, it was put in the bin, and a new one (30 pounds) from Mountain Designs has taken its place. After this, we were walking along the waterfront when we heard a bloke yelling out about a 20-minute sea cruise for 5 pounds. We thought this sounded okay, so gave them the money and climbed on board the Summer Queen. They waited until a few more people had signed up, then we did indeed have our very pleasant cruise out of the enclosed harbour to the end of the city and back.
We were congratulating ourselves on being lucky with the weather, as according to the Met, there was an 80% chance of rain from 11am to 1pm, but our luck held! Indeed, the sun did keep coming out, and we were veering between being cold, and wearing many layers, or feeling hot, and stripping down to a long-sleeved shirt. I must have taken my jacket on and off about 20 times today.
After our cruise, we walked right out to the very end of the
main jetty, past the lighthouse. There’s a sign there warning of extreme danger
from waves during storms, and a gate that they use to make sure no one goes out
there when needed. By then, it was definitely time for lunch. We checked out
some of the food prices at the hotels on the Quay, but they were fairly eye-watering.
A Google search showed that there was a JD Wetherspoons hotel just up the road,
so we headed for The Angel. Here we both chose the Beef and Ale puddings for
lunch, and they were very tasty indeed, with a jug of gravy to pour over. And
we got them plus a cuppa each for just over 20 pounds.
Following lunch, and with an eye on the weather (still no rain), we decided it was time to head up to the iconic landmark, Whitby Abbey. To get there, we wandered through even more adorable medieval cobbled lanes and shops. There were at least 8 shops selling Whitby Jet, the polished black stone so beloved by Victorians for mourning jewellery. And of course, made popular by Queen Victoria who plunged herself into 40 years of mourning, so wore a lot of it! I felt I didn’t need any, so we passed them by. We did, however, go into a local artist, John Freeman’s shop, where we were happy to buy a fridge magnet and a set of coasters from his son. We then had to walk up a huge stone staircase – 199 steps - to reach the Abbey. Lots of stops to admire the view!
Whitby Abbey is English Heritage, so we didn’t have to pay the 17 pounds each admission fees, plus the nice lady gave us both an audio player to listen to information as we went around. The Abbey dates back to St Hild in the 700s, but it was abandoned because of Viking raids. It was revived by a Norman soldier turned Monk in the late 1000s as a Benedictine Abbey, and flourished until Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the 1500s. Of course. Cromwell really did a good job of slighting this one. However, it’s really come into its own in the last century or so as the home of the Dracula story in the UK. Bram Stoker did live and write in the town, and based several parts of it right here. Whitby Abbey is pretty much the Goth capital of Britain; they actually have a Goth Weekend every year so they can all channel the Drac vibes. It certainly is atmospheric; I imagine it’s very spooky at night. We had a lovely, vampire-free wander around the ruins, trying to work out where everything was and imagine how impressive it would have been in its heyday. The Visitor Centre is housed in a ruined 17th-century mansion on the site; it had some excellent displays on the history of the site through the centuries. Plus lots of Dracula merchandise on sale in the shop! It was a very enjoyable hour or so, anyway.
From there, we made our way back down the steps, and to our last visit of the day: the Captain Cook Museum. It’s housed in the family home where he lived in the mid-1700s when he was apprenticed as a young lad to a sea captain. It did cost ten pounds each for admission, but as visiting Aussies it was good to see. They had a lot of letters written by Cook, and a lot of information about his life and voyages I didn’t know. The man certainly was a map-making genius for his time – apparently his maps were used right up until the early 20th century as they were so accurate. The lady at the desk was intrigued to hear about the Singing Ship memorial to him in Emu Park!
By this time it was after 3, and my legs were very tired. We decided to head back to the bus stop and to the Park and Ride, and by 4 o’clock were home again for a much-needed cuppa. Lex went for a walk down to the creek (or beck) at the bottom of the village, while I had a nice lie down, sorted photos and started the blog.
We’ve had pasta bake for tea, and are now looking at options
for tomorrow. We were so lucky with the weather today; it began showering while
we were driving home, but there has been little or no rain here. Hopefully it
will get warmer and drier over the next few days. Today was only supposed to
get to 15 degrees, but at one point it did get up to a ridiculously warm 17! We
shall see what tomorrow brings…
I’ve been asked about the prices of food here – as you’ll have noticed, eating out tends to be very expensive, unless you can seek out the cheaper places. But self-catering is definitely the way to go if you want to save money. I thought I’d put in our groceries from yesterday as an example to compare with Australian prices, and it’s a surprise. Admittedly this was in Lidl, but a lot of things are much cheaper than at home. For example, bananas are only (in Australian dollars) $1.85 a kg, multigrain bread $2.70, peanut butter $2 a 375g bottle. A big bag of stir fry vegetables was only $2. Those are pretty much half the price of what we pay. On the other hand, any beef is really expensive. We paid $10 for 400g of mince. And Cadbury’s chocolate is expensive, just like at home! (Can report that it does taste different; just a bit sweeter and milkier.)
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