Up one side and down the other, Part 1

Having had a few days at Ferry Meadows earlier in the year to get back into the swing of things we planned a much longer trip of 26 days. Our original first stop was to be the C&CC site at Slingsby in North Yorkshire but as the time approached, we decided to break the journey at Poolsbrook CMC site just for an overnight. We have stayed here before and find it very convenient as its near the M1 but not in earshot so to speak! We are glad we made the decision as traffic was pretty heavy as it was a Bank Holiday weekend. The reasoning for going to Slingsby was to visit Castle Howard which is about five miles from the site. Unfortunately, the weather was not kind to us but we did eventually get the stately home albeit on our way to our next site. Many will remember Castle Howard for the TV series, Brideshead Revisited, staring a very young Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons. Fortunately, we had a nice sunny day for our visit. We decided just to visit the gardens rather than the house. It was all very grand with impressive vistas.

The next leg of our journey was a relatively short hop over to the coast at Whitby. Sandfield House had been recommended to us as it had good connections by bus into the town. The site has good facilities and all pitches have a sea view. The next day we took advantage of the half hourly bus service into town. You are dropped off next to the train station which is shared between British Rail (is that still such a thing?) and the North Yorkshire Heritage Railway if you want to visit Heartbeat countryside. We seem to have bit of a TV trend going on here!

There is quite a lot to see in Whitby but we have to pace ourselves so we decided to concentrate on the walk down alongside the river the Harbour entrance. On the quayside there is an interesting sculpture “Fisher Women” preparing fish. Earlier we had passed the Town Bridge. Some time ago somebody had posted a picture of this bridge on Club Together with the bridge completely rammed with people. Whilst it was busy it was not that packed! When in Whitby there is always the omi presence of the Abbey ruins on the other side of the river. We didn’t think we would be able to climb so we made do with the view. 

Alongside our pitch there was a path that takes you down to the beach so the next day we thought we would have a gentle afternoon walk down to explore. Foolish in a way that we didn’t realise sooner but was we approached the beach we were aware that it was getting steeper and steeper and we started to worry about getting back up! Not wishing to bore anyone but seven years ago Margaret had a heart bypass operation and my left knee doesn’t like hills so we had a dilemma. Do we attempt to climb back up or look for other alternatives? The latter seemed more attractive but it did mean a walk back into Whitby and the bus back. This was not what was planned but as with many things there was a degree of serendipity involved. It meant we discovered a lot more of Whitby including the Captain Cook statue overlooking the harbour. To get there is a bit of a climb which did have the advantage of a better view of the Abbey. We could see all the people, almost ant like, making their way up the path to the Abbey. The thing that really hurt about this error of judgement was that it cost me £3.80 in bus fares as our bus passes were back in the motorhome!

The final leg of our journey on the east side of the country was to South Shields. It may seem an odd destination for a holiday trip but in the past South Shields would have been a seaside resort that many in the Newcastle area would have visited. Interesting, Margaret, who hails from Newcastle proper had never been to South Shields. Oh, how I spoil her!  Finding campsites in this area of the North East is not an easy task. Now of course there is the wonderful Old Hartley site but that is some way north of the Tyne so we found Sandhaven which is adjacent, although no direct access, to the wonderful sandy beach at South Shields and not too far from where the Great North Run finishes. It is basically a rather nice static site but with about 20 serviced hardstanding touring pitches.

Across from the campsite is a handy bus service that takes you to the South Shields Transport Interchange, where if you wish you can join the Tyne and Wear Metro for greater exploration of the area. We contented ourselves with South Shields and one thing I wanted to see was the South Shields ferry across the Tyne to, you shouldn’t be surprised by this, North Shields! I persuaded Margaret that we should have a ride on the ferry just for the sake of it. The Tyne is surprisingly wide at this point and further upstream we could see the ferry to the Netherlands moored. (we later saw it heading out to sea from our pitch on the campsite). After our ferry trip we headed into town and were greeted by the fine old Town Hall next to the market, it dates back to 1768.  Like many towns across the country the main shopping street has perhaps seen better days as major retailers have closed or failed.

Opposite the campsite is a fairly new residential development. The local shopping centre is at the top of the development. It was interesting as we made our way through that there were notice boards explaining how the area was developed from the old Westoe Colliery as part of a regeneration plan. It is on Crown land and it seems that Prince Charles may have been involved at some stage which might explain the slight similarity to Poundbury! Later on, we had a walk along the sea and river front. I am pretty sure that parts of the Vera series (TV theme continues) have been film here abouts. I think I may have spotted an error of continuity because in one episode the crime happened on one side of the river but the ambulance was being loaded on the other!!! I think this is a location we could return to.

Apologies - I had tried to add more photos as I have done in the past but that does not seem to work any longer. In the second part I will provide a link to the Blog where all the photos of the trip can be seen. David