Day 25 - Robin Hood's Bay

Distance Walked: 25km, Actual Time Taken: 5h 45m, Estimated Time Taken: 6h 20m
Ascent (GPS): 810m, Ascent (Watch): 396m. Descent (GPS): 818m, Descent (Watch): 357m
G&T: Whitby Gin (You Can Drink It), Beer: 1/2 pint Timothy Taylor's Landlord Dark (You Can Drink It)

I don't believe the ascent/descent totals from the GPS.  The elevation graph looks scary but that is just because the y-axis is so fine.  I think the watch totals are more plausible.  I had the GPS in the pocket of my fleece, which was tied around my waist most of the day.  I think all the bouncing up and down with every step confused it.

The walking today was easy again, which was good as it was a long day.  The weather was lovely, in the morning at least.  Clear skies, mild temperatures and very little wind.  In the middle of the afternoon it started to go off, with the skies clouding over.  It never managed to rain.  It is saving that for tomorrow.

I didn't see many people walking the Cleveland Way in my direction (North to South) but met plenty going the other way.  If you are only doing the coastal section it does make sense to walk it the other way (South to North) so you don't have the sun in your eyes.  Although I did met one individual who was doing it in the northerly direction but trying to walk the 30+km from Scarborough to Whitby in a single day, which is not sensible at all.  I found doing the 25km from Runswick Bay to Robin Hood's Bay was actually a bit too much.  The length is quite do-able but it means you don't have any time to stop in the various villages you pass through on the way.  His schedule just made it more of a forced march.

The flat bit in the middle of the elevation chart is me walking the 3.5km from Sandsend to Whitby along the beach rather than up along the cliff top.  This section was all road walking so I thought I was rather clever avoiding it.  That is until I realised that walking on sand, not matter how hard packed, is a different experience to that of walking on firm ground.  

I stopped in Whitby for some lunch and to buy some jewellery as a souvenir.  Whitby is famous for the high quality jet that is mined nearby.  There were well over a dozen jewellery shops selling items made with it.  I didn't have time to browse them all so I settled for the first one that had items that I liked and which had clearly displayed prices.   I assumed that any shop that was being coy about how much things cost would have prices that were higher than I wanted to pay.  I ended up buying two pairs of earrings as I couldn't chose between them.  If you replace the pound sign on the price tag with a dollar sign they were very reasonably priced.

After this I escaped Whitby.  It is probably the biggest seaside resort in Yorkshire and was full of tourists, even though it is out of season.  I can't imagine how crowded it must be in the summer time.  I am all out of practice with crowds and found it all rather unpleasant.   Plus I still had 11km more to walk and the weather was beginning to look like rain.  Still, it was shame I couldn't/wouldn't stay longer as there were two museums I would have liked to visit.  One on the history of jet and the other about the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.  

Just outside of Whitby I came across the best possible holiday cottage I've ever seen.  The views would be spectacular.  I'd love to stay here and it is only 600 GBP a night.  However, a few hundred metres further along the cliff path is the local fog horn station, so perhaps not the quiet location it first seems.  

However, I've just looked up details on the foghorn and it isn't operating anymore.  It is now a private house with just an interesting roof top decoration.

Just outside of Robin Hood's Bay I saw the best sight yet.  A pod of about a dozen dolphins swimming north and jumping up out of the waves.  It was lovely to watch.  I tried taking photos but every time I clicked the shutter button they went under the water so all I have is a sequence of out of focus pictures of waves.  

I got to my B&B (a proper one this time, not just a B) around 4:30pm.  I settled in and had a shower before heading out to explore the village and decide where to have dinner.  As Robin Hood's Bay is yet another fishing village it is perched all up the hillsides of a narrow cove.  My B&B is at the top so I tottered down (and down) to the beach and looked around.  I was looking for somewhere other than a pub but I couldn't find any bistro/restaurant that was 1) still operating; and 2) open on a Tuesday night.  I finally did the obvious and checked out Google.  It said the best bistro in the place was back up the top of the hill, so up I went again, only to find it also isn't open on a Tuesday.  I gave up and headed for the nearest pub, the Victoria Hotel.  I had the fish (cod) and chips with mushy peas as I'm tired of the steak & ale pie.  It was Harmless.

I'm not the only guest here at the B&B.  There is a husband and wife couple that have just come in and are having a heated "discussion".  Lot of "All right.  All right." and "Here we go again."  Other people are really tiresome some time.