More chips please, 24 November 2013

Although we'd had a calmer night's rest, it wasn't really looking like walking weather so we headed over the wall, figuratively speaking, and into the old abbey with free tickets from the hostel.  But there was an icy blast blowing up the cliff this morning, so we didn't tarry too long before getting into our respective vehicles for other historical delights.

Helmsley furnished a mediocre and overpriced lunch (yes, they couldn't get the chips right, again - what is Yorkshire coming to?), but it had a rather good pile of stones which turned out to be the holiday overflow to Belvoir Castle.  The rain stayed in the distance just long enough to provide a fine rainbow over the keep, and we could hardly have asked for more than that now, could we?

Vlad Dracul vs. Robin Hood, 23 November 2013

Having been woken by two groups of rowdy drunkards in the early hours, it wasn't the most promising start to the day, even if this weekend's HQ was the only hostel with a stained-glass clerestory we'd ever come across.  

But off on cliff path we went, and we were soon strolling past fine-looking horses, fog-horns which could compete even with some of us on a Saturday night, and only a few mud-spattered walkers coming the other way.

Having left Dracula's haunt behind us in Whitby, we were soon enough in Robin Hood's Bay, for tea and cakes and a bus back to base - where the rabble-rousers had been turfed-out and all was well with the world..  

The Wreck of the Demeter