Friday 25 August 2017

Day: 231 24/9/00 Robin Hood’s Bay to Runswick Bay

Weather:  Cloudy, slightly misty.

Distance:  25 km (15.5 miles)    Total Distance:   2974 miles

I left the hostel at 7.30 after a mug of black coffee and had to unbolt the front door myself.  I got a bit lost on the back roads and ended up near Boggle Hole before finding some very narrow roads to Robin Hood’s Bay.  I was fortunate enough at Robin Hood’s Bay to find a parking spot in a side street, thereby negating the need to pay a days parking fee in the car park.  The side street was conveniently part of the Cleveland Way and I was soon on the cliff tops.  It was a murky start to the day but there were a couple of walkers up and about.  The views were good and the cliffs pretty spectacular with some steep bits every now and then. 

After about two hours I was closing in on Whitby. The abbey was visible from far away.  I passed through a sizeable Haven caravan site just before coming into the town.  A diversion on the path took me through a farmyard and then past the Youth Hostel I would have stayed in if it had not been full up.  

My knee had been giving me a bit of jip all morning but it was only when I came to descend the 160 odd steps into Whitby did I realise it was bad.  Each step as agony and I had to stop pretty often to try to find a new technique. I felt very self-conscious with all the people around.  It was a relief to be on the flat at the bottom and have the shops to take my mind off the pain. I was looking forward to morning coffee.

I went into a café at Whitby and ordered a bacon sandwich, toasted teacake and cup of tea from a surly waitress.  One would have expected to be served with the teacake after the bacon sandwich but not here, added to which they even managed to make bacon tasteless which must be a culinary feat in itself.  

Soon after leaving the café I found a way down onto Whitby Sands and was relieved because my knee appeared to be OK when I was walking on the flat.  The most memorable part of this section was having a bull terrier clad in leather and metal harness jump up at me that gave me the jitters.  The loutish owner called it over and put it on a lead all without looking in my direction once.  I think he had been in the same situation before!

At Sandsend Bay I was all for giving up for the day.  My knee was very painful coming off the beach.  I was actually standing at the bus stop for some 15 minutes when I decided that I still had enough energy and time to get to Runswick Bay and pressed on even if it hurt!  

This decision probably surprised the people at the bus stop I had been talking to – as I left without telling them why. They were probably thinking what a strange person to wait for a bus and then leave just as it was about to come! 

I was fortunate that the climb out of Sandsend was OK and the from then on there was only one major climb all the way to Runswick.  The first half was a strange lunar type landscape but with well defined paths and lots of people out for the walk.  It then reverted to the more traditional cliff top paths before a steep fall into Runswick Bay.  Slow going when you can not bend your right knee!

By the time I got to Runswick Bay my knee was in a pretty bad way.  There was no sign of a bus stop at the bottom of the hill so that meant a hike up a very steep hill out of the village that took me a while at the snail’s pace I was walking.  I studied the bus timetable I had with me, decided it was quite a while before the next bus and popped into the pub to ask where the bus stop was and have a pint of very average Timothy Taylor’s Landlord bitter.  Why does my friend rave about this beer?

 It did not seem to make much sense where the landlady told me where the bus stop was so I decided I would walk up to the main road to Ellerby where it should be more obvious where the stop was.  Ellerby happened to be just off the main road and my doubts returned as to whether I had the right place even though there was a bus stop there, but a bus did turn up and took me to Whitby where I waited another 30 minutes and then got a bus to Robin Hoods Bay. It stopped pretty near my car as it happened which was a relief.
  

The roads back were awful.  I hit traffic on the way out of Scarborough and it was bad all the way to York – I even cut off onto the back roads and found a better route to York thinking I was behind a slow moving vehicle or an accident but it was probably sheer weight of traffic.  From the A1 on till I eventually left the M1 in North Derbyshire and ended up cutting down past Ripley, through Derby and coming back on the A38.  It took me 6 hours to get home to Coventry.

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