Day 4 Saturday - Edinburgh to Whitby
After spending some time with my doting daughter (above) who somehow did me for two rather expensive dinners and a lot of drinks (students eh!), I left the pit of despair that is the Edinburgh Travelodge Central and headed off. By the way, the "Camera Obscura" at the top of the Royal Mile is well worth a visit. It's a lot more interesting than it looks from the outside with some super optical illusions, a mirror maze, holograms etc as well as the camera obscura itself for which you get a very nice demo as part of the price. Anyway, the plan was to take the slow road down to Sandsend, just north of Whitby on the east coast.
Having never been to that part of the country, and being quite interested in seeing the Northumberland coast, it seemed like a good plan. And indeed it was a good plan. Tracking as close to the coast as I could, first stop after exiting Edinburgh (trickier than I thought it would be) was North Berwick. I'm guessing this is a well-to-do commuter town for Edinburgh. Anyhow, it is a really nice place, lovely beach, very nice houses, and worth popping into if you are in the area. Pic across the bay below from the harbour.
I had to hit the A1 for a few miles as it all got a bit confusing, but snuck off into Berwick Upon Tweed for a look-see. Again, a super little place. One of the joys of being on a motorbike is the freedom to just doodle along, stop anywhere and nosey around, and then hare off like a loon just for kicks. I love it. And travelling alone I had nobody to worry about and just did my own thing, following my nose down little tracks and side roads.
After breakfast of extremely tasty McDonalds porridge and an egg & bacon McMuffin, one of these side roads took me to Lindisfarne or Holy Island. I reckon I could have forded this but suspect there's a hidden dip just further on which was rather deeper. Anyway the tide was coming in so it would all have been a bit silly. Though I didn't get across, it was interesting enough seeing how fast the tide came in.
A few more miles saw me following the Northumberland Coastal Route which I recommend. I went through Bamburgh, home of the famous castle. On any other day I'd have spent a couple of hours there taking photographs of it, but being bright, sunny and cloudless the pics would have been a bit bland. Further along the coast is Wawkworth Hermitage which is another castle. Lots of castles around here. I stopped for a slash as they had a loo in the carpark, and just sat near the bike taking it all in. I think we get a bit blase about the history in our country - these castles are amazing and have been around for so long. Wawkworth below...
The bike by the way was running beautifully. It seems perfectly happy tootling along or hooning or sitting at 80+ on the motorway. Very pleased with it indeed. Of course, nothing has gone wrong with it ever (touch wood). I had on Rukka Armas gear and an EXO2 Stormchaser heated jacket underneath. On the way up I used the heat several times as it was an early 5C start and quite chilly. The heated torso and sleeves are very good indeed, and I only needed it on the lowest setting. The EXO2 acted as a liner for the Rukka jacket whose liner I'd removed. I left the liners in the trousers. One thing I do need to do is get a pair of warmer Daytona boots come the winter as the ones I was using were short summer ones with ventilated tops so they were quite chilly early on. Happily the weather got better and better, lovely and warm by this day and it was great riding conditions.
I thought it worth going through some of the more industrial areas to see where real northern men make real things, rather than us southerners who just push money about. After some nice back roads I found myself going through Newcastle and finding the Tyne Tunnel free to bikes
and onward through Sunderland and to Hartlepool where I found the Billingham chemical works and numerous other heavy industrial areas. Very interesting indeed, though I was concerned I'd get arrested for overtly taking pics of these places. Anyway here's one of Billingham.
Ok so there's some fairly run down areas, but quite a lot of regeneration on the go from what I could see. Again, having never been to this part of the UK I found it all very interesting and enjoyed bimbling around exploring.
I hit the coast road againafter going through Middlesborough, which didn't seem to have a centre from what I could see but the out of town shops were doing a good trade. I went through Redcar which looked like it was having a tough time, and came to somewhere called Saltburn. This is a v.pretty little seaside town with a crazy road that has a very steep tight hairpin on it. This didn't worry me at all on the way down, but some lady driver had stalled it on the hairpin and simply seemed unable to get moving again, despite the engine screaming and the clutch pouring acrid smoke out as it disintegrated. I watched this for a little while until a passer by suggested she get out of the car which he then simply drove up the hill for her.
It looked like a good spot for lunch so I tucked into a cheese & ham toastie and watched the surfers from a nice bench in the sunshine. An elder Yorkshire lady sat next to me and opened up conversation, so we had a chat. Turned out she was waiting for her pal who had gone to get fish & chips. Somehow in a trice she had my life history out of me before I knew what was going on. She then relayed all this to her pal who arrived with some very nice looking fish & chips. Bless - reminded me of my now dead Gran who was from Bradford.
A quick whiz down the road saw me go through Sandsend where I was going to stay the night and into Whitby. What a lovely place. Again, never been there before and I had a great time exploring on foot after leaving the bike in the care of some rather-too-clean looking Hells Angels with their shiny Harleys. Whitby is the sort of place I enjoy - lots of little nooks and crannies to look at and a good bit of history. I'd missed Goth Weekend by a week - shame as I hear they have a latex-oriented Sexy Sunday which would have been interesting.
Some time was spent trying and failing to win on the 10p shuffle.
And lovely cold beer in the warm sunshine just by the swing bridge. A very good spot for people watching.
And then back to my hotel in Sandsend - the slightly intriguing Beach Hotel. It's a "50 yard hotel" in that it looks great from 50 yards away. Get closer and it's a bit tired and dated. However I couldn't fault the welcome from the owner, or the cleanliness of the room which overlooked the beach. They let me slot the bike in their secure storage area for the night. As they didn't do evening meals, a really good seafood dinner was had at the Hart Inn just along the seafront. I had a few too many beers as I chatted to some of the folk in the bar.
This chap was catching nothing. Full marks for effort though, and it looked nice as the sun set.
Breakfast was fresh plump properly smoked kippers which were cracking, if rather bony. Very very bony. In fact I think they were mostly bones. Tasty though.
Day 5 - Sunday: Whitby to Guildford
I thought I'd make the most of the last day by riding through the North York Moors national park. After fiding my way there in what would be best described as a roundabout way, I got to Castleton and rode along the Blakey Ridge. Very nice indeed - after having encountered lots of traffic on the main A171, and A LOT of bikes hooning around, it was nice to be in the boonies again.
I made the most of some lovely riding, again in excellent weather, but eventually was spat out onto A roads again. There seemed to be a big biker meeting place at Helmsley, but knowing I had a fair stretch to do to get back south I didn't stop. Some more cross country saw me onto the M1 north of Harrogate, and that was pretty much that. Dull dull dull.
I stopped to juice up at some services somewhere and had lunch:
I really don't get on with motorway riding - it's so dull especially with the remnants of a hangover nagging at the head. Anyway, not in any great rush I sat at 70-80 and relaxed as the bike took me home. M1, M25, A3, beer. Sorted.
Aside from the annoying but necessary motorway stuff, I've not enjoyed a trip so much in a long while. It was refreshing, interesting, and fab riding. It felt like I'd been away two weeks. Britain - what a great place.
