We kept up our cycling craze for the fifth consecutive weekend, which just goes to show how good the weather has been because the slightest sign of cold or rain is enough to send us scurrying for the conservatory with cocoa, slippers and a book. This week we decided we'd do the Whitby to Scarborough route, which follows the course of the old railway line between those two seaside towns (thankfully they've taken up the track and the sleepers, which makes it much easier to cycle on). All along the route you pass old platforms, some still with station buildings, others with none. In most cases the station buildings have been converted into tea rooms and B&Bs, which is rather nice.
The first place of note that you come to after leaving Whitby is Robin Hood's Bay, only 3 or 4 miles distant. I'd been there once before, in April 1989, and it was nothing like how I remembered it. I'd thought it a drab and dreary place, down on its luck and in need of some renovation. Well, I guess that's happened because the place now is superb. The narrow main street descends precipitously down to the sea (a 1 in 3 descent) and is lined on each side with tea rooms, shops and houses, all of which look totally beautiful.
Further narrow streets branch off here and there and the whole place is beautifully picturesque. We wished in some ways that we didn't have our bikes with us, so we could have wandered around a bit more unencumbered. It's hard to believe that we'd been here only once before, given its proximity to Whitby, but we'll visit it again in the near future.
The beach is perhaps not its best feature, being largely covered by the tide most of the time except for a strip below the cliff to the south. When the tide goes out it leaves a vast expanse of sand, uncovered but wet, filled with intricate little gullies and pools, nice for kids (big and small) to explore.
The morris dancers were in town on this day, doing their thing at the top of the cliff and due to move down to the sea later.
We had to leave Robin Hood's Bay after only an hour - we still had 17 miles to go. For some reason I didn't take many more pictures on the route, and those that I did take (the usual action shots of wife on the trail) don't seem to have turned out! Suffice to say that the route passes through some very beautiful woodland scenery, punctuated by a series of bridges, some still in use, some abandoned. At various places, as mentioned earlier, the old stations have been converted into cafes and B&Bs. The most notable of these was at The Station House at Cloughton. This looked really beautiful and very tempting. An interesting place to spend a night, I'd say.
Eventually we arrived at Scarborough, after about a 2 1/2 hour ride. We didn't go right into the town but stopped at Scalby Mills where there's an excellent pub of (roughly) the same name. We ate our picnic on the sea wall, had a couple of halfs and some chips at the pub and then did the return journey. The views as you approach Robin Hood's Bay from the south are wonderful.
This was a good ride, not too challenging other than in terms of the distance covered, although you do tend to notice the long, gradual climb up to Ravenscar, the highest point on the route. Of course this means there's a long, gentle slope down at either side, where you can freewheel at about 10 to 12 mph for 5 or 6 miles. Or, if I wasn't with wife, where you could bomb along at 20+...
So where will cycling take us next week? We're currently eying The Waskerley Way.
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