One of the joys of traveling in England is just driving.  The views from the little lanes and byways are just magnificent and each district truly is unique.  We're definitely putting Portia to the test and we're astounded at how she's able to steer us through the most convoluted backroads to reach our destinations.

Saturday we circled the North York Moors - out to the coast at Robin Hood's Bay for a short walk along the cliff edge, then along to Whitby for a quick peek, then down the B1257, 20 miles of glorious scenery to finish up at Rievaulx Abbey, a ruin of one of the most powerful Cistercian monasteries in England.

Cleveland Way at Robin Hood's Bay

folk dancers down by harbor

sustenance for the climb back out of town

Whitby

Rievaulx Abbey

Yesterday we abbey-ed first, at Jervaulx Abbey which not only is much smaller than Rievaulx, it's been left in a wilder state, and one can wander the ruins at will, there's only a Honesty Box for admission.  Then to Middleham for our day's amble which started beside Richard III's castle, and carried us thru some cow pastures, down a slope to a stream, and along that for a while, before circling back up to town, 4.5 miles total.  A nice cream tea lunch fortified us for our Sunday afternoon drive.

smaller Jervaulx Abbey

our morning walk

Sustenance was needed for our drive as on sunny Sunday afternoons every single motorcyclist is out on these leafy, winding roads giving their bikes a run and motorists heart attacks.  The roads are narrow enough that I drive with both hands on the wheel in the attack position (10 & 2), ready to swerve into the LEFT (think left, look right!) hedgerow should anything pass by too closely.  This is compounded on weekends with bicyclists and hikers using the same road (sidewalks, even verges or shoulders, are unheard of here), and motorbikers whipping around corners faster than you can register the blur.  The speed limit on these roads is an unbelievable 60 mph, but I'm rarely over 45...

narrow roads, I'm totally in the bushes!!

We continued up into Wharefdale, and through the Buttertubs Pass which is biker nirvana and over to Richmond area to our little Travelodge for the night.  Oh, for Top Gear fans, this Pass is Jeremy Clarkson's favourite route in the whole of Yorkshire, as he describes it as “England’s only truly spectacular road”.

Buttertubs Pass

Today was another day of dales and driving.  The weather forecast was to change from the perfect sunshine we've been having to rain tomorrow afternoon so we bumped up our itinerary to do the Malham Walk today instead.  I think we drove thru all the dales heading down from Richmond: Swaledale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale (we stopped to pick up some famous Wensleydale cheese, right Gromit?).....

that's actually Sheila's ice cream!  honest!!

Malham is a ramblers/climber/birder/geologist's dream.  The receding glaciers and subsequent weather have carved the weak limestone into crags, gorges, scar, steps and tarn. (cliffs, rocks, lake).  It's about a 8-mi walk to see it all, which we did, and well worth it.

Our Day in Thumbnails

we made up our super-duper comfy bed

and tidied our private sitting room

before having a gourmet breakfast (P.S. we're not coming home!)

and drove out onto the moors

where the wildlife posed...

and posed again...

before descending England's steepest road

to arrive in Grosmont in time to see the Hogwart's Express (or close enuf)

before we walked the 3.5 mi Rail Line to Goathland

"Hi Mom!"

Goathland is the UK series Heatbeat's "Aidensfield"

Mom's a fan...

however we skipped town to look for Hogsmeade's train station (calling Potter-heads)

where we bought our tickets from the friendly conductor

and took the train back to Grosmont

so we'd have time to see a war-time POW camp turned museum

with old machines, trucks, and aircraft

and barracks housing great storyboards, memorabilia and tableaus

replicating what like was like in the war

for prisoners of war held there

as well as for the Brits at home

then mom said it was time to go home

S & A's little adventure...

I just liked this pic of rain spitting up from a cloud

One of the trials of life on the road is Constant Change.  Moving each day to a new place, trying to find one's way around town, packing and unpacking, looking for good restaurants, etc.  We've solved many of these issues thru planning and experience.  Contrary to how I normally travel, i.e. not in high season, this year I did pre-book all our accommodation and twice we're going to actually stay put for three nights in a row one place!  It might mean some back-tracking at the end of the day, but the payoff will be knowing where we are going and what to expect.  As for food, we travel with a soft-sided cooler bag which functions as our bar/picnic basket, and dinners for us are often feasts from this bag when we don't feel like venturing out.  And packing: we leave our big suitcases in the trunk of the car and each afternoon put into one carryall everything we'll both need for the night/next day, so we really only have a couple of small bags to carry up.  But even the best laid plans do go awry sometimes...

We determined that Wednesday was Laundry Day, something to be done later on when all our touring of York was complete.  The afternoon rains delayed things a bit so by the time we ventured forth from our hotel room, did a spot of interneting at McDonalds (free wi-fi, didn't even buy an ice cream, honest!), and finally tracked down the only laundrette within York's city walls, it was just about to close.  The nice man said we could leave our dirties with him, and he'd have them washed/dried/folded by 9:30am the next day.  Sorted.  Except we didn't show up Thursday until 12:03pm, 3mins after he closed for the day!  Momentary panic set in and I had visions of having to drive all the way back across the Yorkshire Moors Friday just to pick up our unmentionables!!  I ducked into the salon next door and the nice lady from the Okanagan (!) called the launderer on his cell and he agreed to return to the launderette to free our hostage clothes within the hour.

This delay, plus driving in circles around the Ring Road in the rain, and our general putzing around in the morning, put us seriously off-schedule so we didn't arrive at Castle Howard, one of the grandest private residences in England, until 1:30pm. 

And this was the entrance to the car park!  Just taking these photos of the grand 3-mile entrance (2 walled gates AND an obelisk? come on!), depleted my camera battery.  Can anything else go wrong?

A refreshing cup of tea, and a quick plug-in to the cafe's wall outlet, recharged all our batteries and we set off to discover "Brideshead Revisited".

I don't quite remember seeing it but there was a famous BBC mini-series in 1981 of Evelyn Waugh's novel, Brideshead Revisited, starring Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons; then apparently a movie remake in 2008 (did anyone actually see that?) that were filmed here at Castle Howard.  The movie production company actually rebuilt some rooms that were still empty shells after a tremendous fire in 1940 that damaged 1/3 of the house.  So it's a partial museum to the novel as well as the Howard family.

Much of the house is still used by the family, so the public gets to see several rooms set up as "show rooms" to illustrate what the decor might look like back then, not precisely what the rooms were actually used for.  For example, the State Dining room might have actually been used as a living room.  But that's cool, we wouldn't know any different...

Painting of Henry VIII + photograph of grandkid in same room!

A tiny bit smaller than Chatsworth's DR

And the grounds are magnificent!!

 

The cloudy skies above were threatening us with rain so we hightailed it back to our car to seek out our new B&B while the going was still good.  Not a crazy busy day but adventurous nonetheless!

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