Day: 232 15/10/00 Runswick Bay to Saltburn by the Sea

Weather:  Cloudy, dry.

Distance:  18 km (11.2 miles)    Total Distance:   2985 miles

I was working at Grimsby tomorrow so decided to make the most of it and go up for a day’s walking on the Sunday.  The weather had been pretty miserable but it so happened that the forecast for today was OK – particularly in the east where I was to be.  I dove up on the M1 then around York and up and over the moors.  I was wondering at this stage whether I had made the correct decision. The weather closed in and with the drizzle and the fog I could hardly see a thing.  It so happened that as I dropped down off the moors the mist lifted and it stopped raining and I did not see any more rain all day.

I drove around the outskirts of Whitby, through the previously explored village of Sandsend with its very steep hill and onto Runswick Bay.  I parked opposite the pub.  I made one failed attempt to find the cliff path down by the cliff-top hotel but found there was no access this way, so it was back to the pub and then trough some fields and onto the cliff top.  It was pretty easy walking even though I was carrying more weight than I should have been.  The cliffs and sea were grey and although it was good views it would have been much better in bright sunshine. 

The recent heavy rain had left the paths very muddy and just past Port Mulgave there were some ups and downs that were particularly muddy.  There were a lot of people out walking and some in largish groups that I suspect were local Ramblers Clubs.  Staiths is a pretty hilly town and I can imagine in the summer would be packed but at this time of year it was pretty empty.

 I was looking for somewhere to have a coffee but there did not appear to be anywhere obvious so I satisfied myself with a Twix from a shop and the orange squash I was carrying with me.  I climbed up out of the village and then had a break to have my Twix.

The next stretch of the path was a little bleak, across open moorland.  The Cleveland Potash factory was to my left was something to look at.  Past a small hamlet the path took a sharp left for a steep climb up towards the road.  

There were some more ups and down, some bits pretty muddy, before I dropped down to Skinningrove.  This was the first ‘working-town’ I had passed for many years on the sea front.  It looked like a mining town though I guess unemployment was high there now.  Most towns and villages you pass on the coast are picturesque and geared towards tourists but this seemed to be shunning all notion that it could offer the outsider anything at all.  I stopped for a while by the harbour and then set off along the path at sea level, through a concrete tunnel and then up onto the cliffs again. 

All of a sudden, a freight train passed me. It seemed to come from nowhere and was most out of character with a cliff top walk.  I looked the map and discovered it was the line from the potash factory weaving its way down towards the Tees.   The railway track in fact proved to be quite useful because a patch of marsh land appeared and I hopped over the fence and walked beside the track for a while.  There was a modern monument someone had constructed to local industry of the past e.g. iron and steel. 

The last stretch was to drop down into Saltburn.  I came out on the sea front and then had to climb up to the town and the bus stop.  I called my friends to see if was OK to go and stay with them and it was so fortunately so grabbed a coffee in the café, caught one bus up onto the main road at Skelton and then only had a short wait for another bus to take me all the way to Runswick Bay. 

I stopped in Whitby for some fish and chips in a café and a rather depressing sight of lots of bus-loads of tourists having their supper before getting on their busses to take them home.  On the way to Brigg I picked up a hitch-hiker who wanted to go to Hull.  He was a big talker.  He claimed he had been in a fight and barred from a pub the night before defending the integrity of a barmaid, been in a jail in Hull and had lots of other colourful stories! He was also a singer and had a harmonica – he did a few ‘requests’ for me then and there as we were driving along!  He decided he wanted to get out a Beverly when I told him I wasn’t going into Hull itself.