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We started off this trip in Scarborough which used to be Britain's most fashionable seaside resort, and why not. The whole of North Yorkshire is quite wonderful, pretty little villages, wild moorland, and well kept fishing ports. My first stop was Hairy Bob's cave, a silly little carving of a face by the side of the road around the North Bay. As you will see it is far too small for anyone to live in, so make of it what you will!
From Scarborough Castle towering above the Harbour I explained that the town was famous, amongst other things, for being home to the Laughton family, Charles became a brilliant actor, his family owned hotels there including the Royal, and for having many world records. The first water skiing, the fastest round of golf, the slowest round of golf, the first false teeth, the champion oyster eater, the loudest shouter and others including the longest railway platform seat, still there at the station, and Britain's first funicular railway, still there by the Spa.
Peasholm Park in Scarborough is home to daily displays of naval warfare. Started back in 1927 this could well be the longest running show of all time! Huge battleships take to the water starting the 1st week in April and act out wartime battles, with explosions, smoke, fire, torpedoes and low flying aircraft!
The North Yorkshire Moors Railway runs an hourly steam engine service during the summer months from Grosmont, off the A169 in between Whitby and Goathland, all the way down through some of the most beautiful valleys and scenery possible to Pickering.
Goathland is the pretty little remote village that has become the setting for Yorkshire Television's 'Heartbeat'. We stayed the night at The Mallyon Spout Hotel. The Spout is actually a waterfall deep in the valley by the side of the hotel, a nicer spot is hard to imagine, go there very early as we did and you may see deer drinking from the stream, but you need to be fit to take on the climb back up.
Whitby is only a few miles away and is a super spot. Places to see within the town are the old Abbey, originally restored in 1220 but now a ruin, the 1999 steps to Whitby Church, which were referred to in Dracula, and the Captain Cook monument on the other side of the bay. Cook worked here as an apprentice in 1735 for a Quaker ship owner called John Walker. The house he stayed in is still there by the quay side and is a small museum to our great explorer. Next to his monument are the jaw bones of a whale. Whitby was once a whaling port. Behind both is the Royal Hotel, and the 1st floor window towards the sea is where Bram Stoker is said to have put pen to paper for Dracula, he is also said to have had the idea whilst sitting on the mound between the hotel and the harbour. The spot is now marked with a wooden seat. It was there that we met master ghost story teller Harry Collett who runs ghost walks and Whitby walks each evening at 8pm from the Royal Hotel.
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