North Yorkshire - May 2002

A short stay at Martin's place in Birstwith, near Harrogate. I then joined Sim, who had been working in Scarborough. We spent a couple of days there before dropping in on The North York Moors Railway.

• Birstwith
• Scarborough
• The North York Moors Railway

  

Birstwith

All the fields round here are yellow with dandelions - I've never seen so many.
The pack-horse bridge carries the Nidderdale Way  over the River Nidd, down the lane from Martin used to live.
Here's the man himself . Martin next to the Nidderdale Way signpost, by the bridge.	All the woods had wonderful bluebells that week.
This single beam bridge moved a lot as I walked across it!	Another part of the Nidderdale Way, complete with paving stones here.

  

Scarborough

It was nice to be back in Scarborough and the sun was shining, despite the cold wind.
 

The keep of Scarborough Castle, on top of the cliffs. To see the view from here, see the pictures from my previous visit to Scarborough , last year. The Heritage Trail has a brief description and history of Scarborough Castle.
Sim enjoys an ice cream from the castle shop, in his famous hunched style.	Around the cliff, on the north beach, repairs were being carried out to the sea wall. Even with the tide out, the diggers had to run through the water. The castle can be seen at the top of the cliff.
At the bottom of the cliff, below the castle, the sea is quite fierce and often closes the road along the promenade. Here the sea was relatively calm, but with the tide fully in, the road was getting quite wet. A local pastime is to drive down here at night and deliberately park your vehicle where it will get very wet. (This particularly applies if you have a Treved up white van.)
The northern end of the small harbour, on the other side of the castle cliff. Quite an ornate coast guard building - or was it RNLI?	Then the bikes arrived. I think it was a bit of a bikers conference.
At the harbour is one of the traditional police telephone box which would have been used by police officers and the public alike to contact the main police station. Sim was having a good peer inside, but the windows have been blacked out. Is there a phone inside?	The south end of the south sands has now been devoted to the traditional derelict beach huts, vital to all sea-side towns in the UK. This is the sad site of the former open-air, sea filled swimming pool which is now left to decay. Sim remembers being wary of all the crabs that lived here amongst the bathers. The derelict beach huts are out of shot - but they're there nevertheless.
Don't often climb a ladder to go down through a trap-door.  Odd- why not make the door in the wall instead? I think this was behind the spa complex on the south beach.

The North York Moors Railway

On our way west, before going our separate ways home, Sim and myself stopped off at Pickering to visit the North York Moors Railway.  The weather was misty, so we didn't get many good pictures, but here they are. (See also the pictures from my previous visit .)

 

The station at Grosmont. Here there's an interchange with the 'mainline' and the maintenance workshops of the moors line.
Can't remember which station this is - but note the catch points. They protect the rest of the line by deliberately derailing run-away shunted stock leaving the shunt area of  the station. There's no gap between the 'Shunt Limit' and the catch points - no room for error! (Rails are much more interesting than trains.)	Look at the size of the water filler. Puts those Grand Prix pit-stop fuel hoses to shame.
	It was too misty to see or photograph the scenery. Despite myself and Sim trying to do so at the same time
To end on a nice geeky note - here's a view into the cab of a diesel locomotive we happened to stop next to. Look at all those levers.