I had decided that this Saturday I wanted to visit the sea town Whitby. The past weeks I had not done any weekend travel - the last one had been on 25.February. So now it was time to resume the weekly getting-to-know the area of Northern England.
I had been in Whitby already twice, last autumn, but I wanted to see how it is now in this spring season, and I wanted to eat some fish and chips - supposedly in Whitby they are the best of whole England!
As I woke up relatively early on Saturday morning, I saw that it was raining. The weather report had predicted that Saturday would be with some sun shine, and the weather was supposed to be better than on Sunday. Well, I decided to go now anyway - maybe in rain the scenery would even look more mysterious, which would be quite appropriate for the Whitby Abbey.
As I drive on the A64, around York, the rain gets worse - a real downpour! Parts of the road have large water puddles, and the rivers that flow under the bridges, appear to be quite full and flooded.
I have left quite early, so I think that I could even catch the first steam train leaving Pickering today. The North York Moor Railway (NYMR) is operating several steam trains on weekends, between Pickering and Grossmont, going through a wonderful valley through the North York Moor. I had taken that ride in last September, but now with the trees still without leaves, there might be some interesting views that I did not have last time.
The parking lot at Pickering is almost empty - what a contrast to last autumn when I hardly found a space, far away from the station! The train is already waiting. I could actually catch a connecting train from Grossmont to Whitby, but then I see from the schedule that there would be only one train on the return route, and I would not be very flexible if I would take that. So I decide to just do a round trip to Grossmont by train, and then continue with the car to Whitby.
Rain showers keep coming, it does not look as if today would be the sun coming out. But this is England - the weather changes constantly, and I should not be surprised if that small area of blue sky that I see far away in the south, would not eventually make its way up to here.
