It was the last Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK just this past Monday. The hubby is still away and I was glad that our friends suggested going away for a long weekend trip. As we all have been to various places within the UK, we finally "settled" for Yorkshire. I had no idea what to see there but was just glad we were going somewhere. If you talk about weekend trips within the UK, you often hear places mentioned such as the Cotswolds, the Lake District, the Peak District, Cornwall or maybe Wales. Yorkshire (in the North) doesn't quite pop up in people's minds. Now that we are back, I wonder why did I not go earlier! It was such a beautiful place in fact I think I rank it one of the top places to visit for a long weekend trip. "Settled" was such a wrong word to use!
 |
| Roads were very empty in the national park. Very often we were the only car driving around. |
There are two national parks in Yorkshire - Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors National Park. We were rather clueless on which one we wanted to go until Lawrence said his friend suggested going on the steam train which runs through the North York Moors National Park. My role was to look for accommodation and so I started my rather last minute research. I chose our base to be near Pickering as that was where the train started.
 |
| A stunning view of the moors. |
 |
| Untouched wild beauty |
Saturday morning we met for breakfast at the Breakfast Club in Canary Wharf before setting off at 1030am. It was a brave decision to start that late considering it was a 4.5h drive but… I think we are brave enough lol. Thank God the drive there was very smooth. In fact we were not stuck in any jam at any point in time - unbelievable! We arrived to good weather and as part of her research, RX assumed the role of our tour guide, having downloaded a scenic route online. It was also a trip down memory lane for her as she spent 4 weeks interning at a GP and Surgery Practice while she was at medical school almost 10 years ago. She stayed with a GP and her family at her house within the national park and she recalled fondly on how they would frequently walk down to the bay to admire at the sea view only finding out later on that it was actually a popular tourist site in itself. She was really glad to be back and I was just really glad we went :)
 |
| Arriving in the village of Helmsley |
 |
| Pretty streets. Every store front had pretty blooms! |
 |
| Us girls had the pink rose lemonade drink during lunch |
We drove around following the route as much as we could to take advantage of the good weather. We knew that Sunday would be cloudy with intermittent showers, and Monday would be rainy weather. We stopped by quite a few villages and towns that I have lost track now looking back at my photos! I remember telling them we need to go to the seaside village of Staithes as I saw it being featured in an article on "the most beautiful villages in England". Thankfully it was part of the scenic route we were following.
 |
| A pretty shop front in Staithes |
 |
| A pub by the seafront in Staithes |
 |
| Close to sunset at Staithes |
Right after Staithes, RX suggested driving nearby to Runswick Bay close to where she lived for that 4 weeks of internship. To that bay she fondly remembers.
 |
| Runswick Bay |
We arrived at our BnB which was on a farm in this place called Rosedale. (I am falling in love with these names. Rosedale sounds so pretty isn't it?) It is a really small village, though the BnB was really well furnished and had a hearty fry up breakfast each morning. One thing though which we struggled being city dwellers - there was barely mobile connection in the national park. The boys had 4G connection usually and lamented they "only have 2G" whereas I had no signal :( There were times I could receive whatsapp messages but before I could reply, that moment was gone - back to "no signal". We chatted with Nadine who runs the BnB about this and she said they are so used to it. "We have landlines!" she said happily. That said in recent years, she admits that they do rely a lot on wifi for internet and also use a lot of Facebook messaging for her to keep in touch with her teenage kids who are studying in Winchester. She did say that they value uninterrupted moments as a family having proper conversations without someone being interrupted by their mobile phones. Makes me reflect on our busy lives, constantly checking our phones and having that social media hunger waiting to be filled. Makes me feel all guilty. Hands up, anyone with me? Even during meals, we tend to have our phones right next to us - so that we know when the next whatsapp message comes through. Which reminds me - have you heard of this term "nomophobia"? I bet most of us are nomophobic. No-Mobilephones-Phobia!! It's a real word introduced not too long ago describing most of us!
 |
| Good morning! The view from our BnB |
 |
| View from our room - look at the group of grazing cows |
So I haven't described what is special about North York Moors. Before this trip I had no idea what Heather flowers were. When we were driving towards Yorkshire, JX mentioned about the purple fields and I paid not much attention. Little did I know about this:
Heather – an evergreen shrub with twiggy stems – covers our open moorland. Usually lots of heather plants grow together, forming a thick, bushy carpet, sometimes up to half a metre tall. This helps the plant to survive strong winds. Heather also has tiny, narrow leaves shaped like the needles on a Christmas tree, which stop the plant from losing too much water as the winds blow across the moors.
Nectar from heather flowers makes excellent honey, and local beekeepers often bring their hives on to the moors in late-summer when the heather comes into bloom.
Heather moorland is rare on a worldwide scale – there is probably less heather moorland in the world than tropical rainforest. Around 70 percent of the world's heather moorland is in the UK and the largest continuous expanse of moorland in England and Wales is here in the North York Moors – a sheep could wander from Egton to Bilsdale without leaving the moor. Moorland covers a third of the North York Moors National Park and most of the higher ground is covered in heather.
 |
| Full of Heather flowers everywhere making the landscape extra pretty. |
Nadine told us that we visited at the right time as they are usually in full bloom in the last 2 weeks of August and added "if we paid attention, we could actually smell a honey like fragrance in the air".
 |
| The seaside town of Whitby. Is this photo a bit creepy? |
On the second day, it was a steam train hopping day. We aimed for the 11.10am train from Gormont to Whitby, a 30min train ride. We were so excited when we saw the steam coming out from the train and like kids we ran on the train and JX and RX even went all the way to the front section and stuck their heads out where they then returned with soot on their face and hair it was quite funny. It was real charcoal and the train worker was busy shovelling coal to burn and the train running through the moors is such a pretty sight to behold. I did feel like I was in some Enid Blyton storybook.
 |
| That's the one we took |
Enid Blyton aside, we made our way to Grosmont train station where the first Harry Potter film was filmed here - Hogsmede station. This station is just unreal. So quaint and pretty. We walked up to take a picture of it before running down to stand on the red bridge to wait for the next two steam trains which were meant to pull up soon. Clearly this whole thing was very touristy and you see all cameras and phones all on standby when the train approaches giving "full steam ahead" a literal meaning for us that afternoon.
 |
| Wrong English? hehe.. old English I mean |
 |
| The red bridge |
 |
| I still can't believe it is a real train station |
 |
| I love this picture - a bird's eye view of the train station Goathland. Looks like toy land no? |
 |
| More Heather flowers |
 |
| Group shot before the train pulled away |
Comments