Part 1 – Whitby up to Newcastle
Gandalf is sat up on the cliff top, about a mile outside of Whitby with sea views ahead and we can even see the Abbey. We’re nestled at Whitby Holiday park– somewhere we visited way back in 2010 in our first ever Motorhome. The appeal to return was the sea view pitches and despite it being a last minute booking, we were pleased to bagsie the last premium sea view pitch on site for a couple of days to kick start our summer 2024.
At £41 pn, it’s verging on the most expensive site we’ve stayed on, but we decided to have a blow out as the forcast looked good and we really fancied a sea view within walking distance to the very delicious Whitby Brewing company!
On arrival therefore we were a bit ticked off to discover that the holiday park implements strict parking guidelines – even more rigorous than C&MC and that we’d loose out sea view immediately because we had to park with our living area on the left even though we were on the end of the row. This unfortunately meant that the whole of the front of our van – which is blocked off by our screen protectors when on site had the sea view and the view out of the sliding door went straight into the side of next doors caravan. Our view when on site is out of the back so ideally we need to reverse in! Not such a problem on a normal rate site- but to pay £41 pn and not get the view was galling. Luckily, after a bit of negotiation with the site they agreed and allowed us to reverse in. We wouldn’t have suggested it if our living. Area would then have opened onto someone else’s pitch- Don’t get me wrong- I understand the need for rules like this and I’m sure for every considerate camper there are 2 or 3 non considerate campers. For people like my dad and stepum who have an A class continental van, this would be a huge disappointment because if you’re booking to stay on a premium sea view pitch but then have to reverse on – which is what they’d have had to have done- their a class windows would have been the wrong way around! I think the site is designed for caravans rather than motorhomes / campers.
Aside from this gripe, the site met our needs- the location is excellent and the showers, whilst a little dated, were clean and provided ample hot water.
Our first night was literally spent just chilling in the van. We did have a leg stretch up to Whitby Brewery – approx a mile along the very good quality coastal path. This section is flat and accessible and affords terrific views of Whitby abbey.
The views of Whitby Abbey from the brewery are excellent too. We both enjoyed a couple of Whitby lagers and I had a Whitby gin.
Once back at Gandalf we enjoyed a fish bbq before an early night.
Thursday dawned with beautiful blue skies. We had lovely lazy morning before decided to don our walking boots and head for a wander down the coastal path south of Whitby.
You can follow this path for 5.5 miles to Robin Hoods bay then transfer back via bus, however since we visited RHB recently we diverted off the path at Hawkser – in time for a quick pint at the pub there. We then picked up the Cinder trail- a great disused railway now turned cycle and foot path back to Whitby. Again the cinder trail is a great way to get between Robin Hoods Bay and Whitby and is traffic free and flat the whole way with lots of cool railway features along the way.
Back in Whitby, we stopped at the Middle Earth Tavern for a quick drink- Gollum enticed us in!
Then Keefy went to visit the Captain cook museum whilst I dog sat in The Quirky bar across the street. Luck was on my side as whilst I was there a group of musicians from Long Eaton also were there doing a jam which was exceptional.
Link to them here
Keefy enjoyed the Captain Cook museum- situated in an old house which he actually lived in. He saw a writing chest that actually went to Alaska with him along with lots of maps and other relics.
From here we made our way down the historic Grape Lane.
We may have snuck into the green dragon for another quick drink- it was very appealing! And Jazz may have woooed the barmaid and ended up getting himself on the doggie wall of fame!
We went down to the lifeboat station to see my Grandads memorial name which appears on lifeboat number 4. I found that really moving/ thanks Dad and Jenny for arranging that he would have loved it!
And then it was time for fish and chips! Hurrah. Brought from Trenches, they absolutely did not disappoint! Mind you we’d walked 10.5 miles by now!
Once back up the steps (actually we took the grade 1 listed road instead this time) we had a quick final drink at Whitby Brewery before making our way back to Gandalf. What a great day we’d had
We had a lovely road trip on Friday up from Whitby to Newcastle.
We’re about to embark on our Hadrians Wall adventure 🤞 so we kickstarted the Roman theme by stopping at Wheeldale Roman Road in North Yorkshire Moors.
We had lunch at Seaham where we enjoyed an hour looking for sea glass. Seaham has a large quantity of sea glass on its beaches due to its close proximity to The Candlish Bottle Works at Seaham which was once the biggest producers of glass in Europe and manufactured glass between 1850 and 1923. The waste glass or ‘end of day’ glass was thrown into the sea (very naughty Victorians !)
From Seaham we continued up to South Shields where we visited the Arbeia Roman Fort, a UNESCO world heritage site. This large site close to the banks of the mouth of the River Tyne was once a strategically important site for the Romans posted up here as it guarded the main flank and sea supply route to Hadrians Wall. Although no original buildings remain, the site has been restored upon original foundations and you get a very good sense of how the site would have looked. It was a dog friendly visit and more excitingly, we got our first stamps for our Hadrians Wall passport!
From here we made our way to our friends house in Newcastle where we were staying for a couple of nights to catch up.
Although we weren’t staying in Gandalf – we enjoyed a wonderful day trip up to Warkworth- we had a lovely walk on the beach and fantastic meal at the Masons Arms. We enjoyed the castle and ice creams in Amble. We even visited the beer festival in Sunderland. It was so much fun and we were looked after a treat!
Don’t panic though, we’re back on the road tomorrow and boy have we got an exciting adventure to share with you all.
“Ave atque vale” 😜
