Middlesbrough; Monday, 25 October, 2010

My plan for the day, as the weather was supposed to be good, was to head for the coast, which meant much of my itinerary would be based around getting there, and as I was taking one of the rare trains to Whitby (there’s only four a day on a Monday), this dictated that I had to have a lie in and a leisurely breakfast before heading over to the station.

The train journey in very pleasant running along the northern edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, but it can’t detract from the fact that it is quite slow, 90 minutes to do less than 30 miles! I arrived in Whitby just after midday and headed for my first stop, the Abbey.

Access to the Abbey is via a stiff climb up the 199 church steps (or if you’re being lazy, and have discovered this before you get to the top, the open-top bus service which does all the leg work for you!), from the top of which there were stunning views over the Yorkshire coast, made all the more impressive by the very rough nature of the sea, battering away at the harbour wall.

The Abbey was founded by the Saxons, improved by the Normans, dissolved by the Tudors and made world famous by the Victorians, or more importantly two Victorians. The photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe took lots of photos of the ruins of the Abbey at Whitby and put that on the map. Bram Stoker took it the next step further and made Whitby an important part of his novel Dracula, and since then the town has milked (or should that be bled) the link for all its worth.

Having looked around the Abbey I hopped on the open-top bus to do a circuit around the town taking in all of the key sites, before hopping back off an hour later at the Abbey to visit the next door church of St Mary’s.

Having looked round the church I descended the 199 steps back down to the town centre and had a wander round taking in the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, before stopping off at one of the many fish and chip restaurants for a bite to eat, not quite certain as to whether it would count as a very late lunch or a slightly early dinner.

As I staggered out of the restaurant I decided that the meal would count as both lunch and dinner, there had been so much of it. In a vain attempt to try and undo some of the damage to my waistline I wandered down the west pier and climbed the lighthouse for views out over the town. By now the tide was high and really lashing at the harbour wall, turning the entrance of the harbour into anything other than a haven.

By now the sun was starting to set, so I wandered back across town to pick up the bus back to Middlesbrough whilst there was still light in the sky to see most of the journey.

It was a very pleasant journey back, though the last 30 minutes or so were in the dark, so I didn’t see much of the views. By the time I got back into Middlesbrough it was nearly seven so I staggered back to the hotel, still full from my fish lunch, watched some telly and had an early night.