8 days in the North East
Saturday, May 29th
We left home at 07:15, the sky was cloudy but bright. The road works between junctions 25 and 28 of the M1, are now completed and it has made such a vast difference now that it is four lanes, and we had a clear run all the way up to West Ayton, which is one of our favourite Caravan Club sites in the north east. We arrived on site at 10:30 and as we made our way to our allotted pitch it soon became clear that the site would be absolutely full before the day was out. West Ayton is 4 miles west of Scarborough on the A170, the site itself is landscaped sits in just over 24 acres and boasts 164 pitches all of which have EHU together with and a Freeview television booster system if required, of the pitches 129 are hard standing. What thing that we like about West Ayton is the fact that it’s centrally situated for visiting Whitby, Scarborough, Filey, Bridlington and Pickering, all of which are with an hours easy driving.
After setting up and unpacking followed the customary cuppa, after which we went into Scarborough, where we had lunch at our favourite fish and chip restaurant ‘Mother Hubbards’, which is nearly at the top of Westborough, after lunch we went down onto the sea front and had a walk round the south bay. The weather was not too good, so it was a lightweight fleece with a pac-a-mac over the top to keep the cold bitter wind out. It amazed me to see how many people had braved the weather to have a run round the bay in one of the speedboats or the pirate ship. We then had a run up to the Sea Cliff Rd., car park which is where the Holbeck used to be before that part of the cliff collapsed. By 16:00 the weather had really deteriorated so we went back to the van, where we stayed for the rest of the day.
Ready for the off!
Our pitch
The Nuptial Suite
Sunday, May 30th
We woke around 06:00 to a beautiful clear blue sky, but as we were driving into Scarborough around 09:30 things completely changed, the sky was now heavily over cast and there was a strong bitter wind. Although we both have shorts, tee-shirts and sandals in the van, I think that they will remain in the wardrobe until we get home, and we both wished that we had bought some far warmer clothing with us than we had done. Most of the morning was spent in and out of shops in an attempt to keep warm and out of the wind, as luck would have it we had booked a table for 12:30 at the Kam Sang, Chinese Restaurant for their Sunday Buffet, which is something that we always have and really enjoy when in Scarborough.
After lunch we had a brief walk up the sea front, then we drove up on to the southern cliffs to where the Holbeck Hotel used to be, after sitting there for about 30 minutes and it was obvious that things were not going to improve, so we made our way back to the van through the lanes via Scalby, Hay Brow and Hackness Hall before dropping down into East Ayton, where we stayed for the remainder of the day.
I could not resist that one!
Monday, May 31st
The weather forecast wasn't too good again, so we decided to have a run to Malton, where much to our surprise it was very much like a ghost town as everywhere was closed for the day, we did however manage to get a cup of coffee before we moved on. Our next stop was the old market town of Pickering, which has always been one of our favourites, whilst wandering around Pickering the weather improved no end, so we decided to have a run through the forest drive in Dalby Forest, where we stopped off in several places to admire the scenery, but it was a complete waste of time trying to take photographs due to the vast number of parked cars and visitors, who seemed to be everywhere. We eventually made our way through the lanes to Scalby and then on to Scarborough's north bay, but parking there was out of the question, so we made our way back to West Ayton, where we got the deck chairs out and sat by the van enjoying a beer or two before dinner, which again we had outside in the sun.
Tuesday, June 1st
Although the weather forecast today was full of doom and gloom regarding the expected torrential rain, we decided to brave it and have a run to Bridlington. As usual we went straight to the south bay, which as always been our favourite due to the fact that it was not really commercialised like the north side of town. When we got to our usual parking place by the Spa, it was more or less one very big building site, and by now the promised rain had started but we still went for a walk around the town, where we had lunch, after which it started rain quite heavy so we made our way back to the caravan, where much to our surprise it was not raining and it was quite dry.
Wednesday, June 2nd
We were woke quite early by the sun streaming through the roof lights, and after a quick breakfast we were on our way to Whitby. Whitby is one of those beautiful old towns, that never seems to change year after year, except that the traffic situation gets far worse. Something that I learnt several years ago was to get to Whitby as early as possible in a morning if you wanted to get in one of the car parks. We had a nice walk down the river to the north beach, then back through the town centre and over the bridge to Whitby East, we were thinking of going up to the old abbey ruins, but it had started to get very crowded, so we made our way back towards the car. Instead of going back to West Ayton down the A 171 to Scarborough we decided to go over the moors and down through Pickering. After dinner we decided to have our last run into Scarborough, where we had a walk down past the Spa to see what they had done with the old outdoor swimming pool, but we were not terribly impressed with the outcome.
Thursday, June 3rd
We got up to yet another beautiful blue sky, and as most of our things had been packed away the night before, we were able to get away early for our run up to the Caravan Club’s White Water Park on the Tees Barrage. The drive from Scarborough to Whitby and then on to Guisborough must be one of the most scenic in the UK. Half way between Whitby and Guisborough we stopped off in the car park at Scaling Dam, where we had a bacon, egg and mushroom bap followed by a nip to the loo. We arrived at White Water Park and were quickly on our reserved pitch, all set-up and sitting in the deck chairs at the side of the van. After lunch we had a walk over the Barrage, down one side of the river across the new footbridge and back up the other side to the Barrage. The major reconstruction work on the water sports area is now well under way, I don't know who is paying for it all, but there is obviously no shortage of LSD. We did hear that it was being funded by the UK Olympic team, for them to practice in ready for the next Olympics, if so, I just hope that it will have been all worthwhile!
Friday, June 4th
It looked like being another nice day so it was on with the shorts and tee shirts, followed by a run up the A19 to South Shields, which is somewhere that we have never been before and I must say that we were both quite impressed with it. We stayed there until mid-afternoon and had a good wander round, then we made our way back down the coast road and across to White Water for dinner after which we spent the rest of the evening with our daughter and family.
Saturday to Sunday Lunchtime we spent the weekend visiting our daughter and family who live on the Headland. We left White Water around 12:15 and within 10 minutes the heavens opened and it remained that way until we were 20 miles from home.
