Day 50 - Whitby

25 May 2023 

Today was all about exploring the historical coastal town of Whitby. Just down the road from our Aislaby accommodation, there is a Park and Ride where you can park your car for free and catch a bus into Whitby, all for the grand price of 2.60 pounds! Excellent value for money, especially considering that parking in Whitby itself is 10 pounds for the day, plus the roads in the town are ancient and therefore very narrow and difficult to navigate. The bus runs every 15 minutes, so it was a bit of a no-brainer, plus it meant we would have a very stressless day.

Whitby is similar to Staithes in that it is a harbour town surrounded by cliffs, but it’s on a much bigger scale, with a lot more people, has an abbey ruin, and a hop-on-hop-off bus. So, it was actually quite nice to experience the contrast. Highlights of Whitby for me are:

·        The stunning cliff-top abbey ruin. It was a 7^th century monastery that later became a Benedictine abbey and was pretty much destroyed by good old Henry VIII. The ruins are huge, and you can get a good idea of how the abbey would have once looked. The location on the cliff overlooking the River Esk is spectacular.

Top photo shows Whitby from upriver looking down towards the harbour entrance - the structure on the hill is the abbey. Middle left photo shows the cliffs along from the abbey. There is a walkway called the Cleveland Way that follows the top of these cliffs. The other two photos are of the abbey.

·        Next to the abbey is the Church of Saint Mary, which was founded in 1110. Coming from Australia/NZ, it is difficult to comprehend something being this old and still in use. The interior has 18^th century box pews, which made the church feel very closed in – not something that I had seen before. The Church of Saint Mary has a very old graveyard, and a local walker showed us Draculas’ gravestone - though a note in the church states “please don’t ask us where Draculas’ grave is, because it doesn’t exist”. Whitby features in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, and there are many references to it around the town.

·        Exploring the narrow little cobbled streets, containing lots of lolly and jewellry shops, pubs, cafes, holiday lets, and even more pubs. Some of the homes were on crazy angles and had names such as “Crooked House”, and “Tipple Cottage”.

Some views of Whitby. Top right photo shows the cottage called "Tipple Cottage". 

·        Sitting on the pier watching the world go by. There were people swimming (crazy because it must have been freezing), school excursion groups (I was imagining the Risk Assessment paperwork that might have been involved), boat tours coming in and out of the harbour entrance, dogs playing in the water, lots of seagulls, and people on the mudflats collecting cockles. Very peaceful.

Same view, taken at different times of the day. The habour looks quite different at low tide.

·        Once again, the friendly people. All the bus drivers today were very welcoming and had us laughing, and the locals were happy to stop and chat. Our catch cry this holiday seems to be “how lucky are we”.

The plan tomorrow is to explore a bit more of the North York Moors National Park, and then to head over towards the Yorkshire Dales.