Weekend: North York Moor

Again weekend, and the bright autumn sun is just too tempting... so I decide to use the nice weather to do a few excursions, for getting more pictures for my collection. On Saturday I head north, towards North York Moor. There is a traffic jam north of York, so I deviate from the main road A64 and drive on small secondary roads. Incidentally I come through the Howard Castle Park, a grandious noble house. The road goes very straight, then through a pseudo-medioval part of a wall with a gate, still straight up a hill where there is another gate with a pyramid-like roof. From there, the road passes a lake, close to which Castle Howard is located.



A stop at the pub "Royal Oak" in Malton: for 5 pound one gets a very nice lunch meal - I take a beef burger with chips (fries) and salad.



The journey goes further north, passing through Pickering, then up the slopes of the North York Moor. A stop at the Hole of Horkum is always rewarding: the grandious view down in the valley is spectacular. The heather which covers the ground on the top of the moor is mostly no longer blooming, the intense purple has been replaced with a reddish-brown. But there are a few single blooms here and there, telling what a marvelous sight this must have been a few weeks ago.



I cannot resist to make a detour to the town of Goathland, where the train station of the North York Moor Railway is, which also was used in the first Harry Potter movie. At this station, the two opposing trains meet each other and let each other pass, as the track in general is a single track. And at 17:10 the two trains arrive from the two directions, wait shortly, then depart.



There is still a little time to visit briefly Whitby, as the sun is setting down. Parking in the town is filled, so I park up the hill near the abbey. The wind is strong, and there are high waves at the sea, well visible even from the top of the cliff. A short stroll down into the town, a brief 25 min tour with the last tourist boat (costs just 2 pound), and then walking back up to the car.



I return wtih a nice new set of pictures, accessible on my Flickr site.