Due to the ongoing pandemic and everyone having to go for UK Stay-Cations, I missed out on booking a week away somewhere this year, so had to settle for having day trips out on my chosen week off to make up for it.
One of my planned days was a revisit to Whitby, which it turned out was a place I had not visited for going on ten years and even then not on a “normal” day, as it was during the annual Goth Weekend, so not the ideal time to be wandering around casually!
Setting off early from home allowed me to get there in good time and secured a place in arguably the best carpark location – Endeavour Wharf Car Park, which is a car park that soon fills up if you leave it too late.
To start the day off proper, required breakfast in a café that comes highly recommended by a couple of friends of mine – The Singing Kettle Café. This place really does sum up “greasy spoon”, but does one of the best full English breakfasts I have ever had.
After fuelling up, the rest of the day was filled with no particular plans and I just enjoyed wandering around the town taking in all the sights in lovely late summer sunshine.
It is somewhat of a tradition to visit Whitby Abbey whilst there, accessed via the 199 steps made famous in the Dracula novel and I also made this trip as I could not remember entirely what the place was like.
For the price, I must say that I felt a little let down really as there is not that much to see, obviously the place is a ruin of the old abbey and even with a slow walk around, it still only took me about an hour or so to see the whole site.
With the sun being so strong as well, I struggled to get any decent photos and had to rely on the old “if it’s sh1te…black and white” to come up with anything half decent considering most of them came out as silhouettes.
I think for my next time, I will probably just wander around the outside of the perimeter as I would still be able to see all that I want to.
My final stop of the day before the long drive home was to see something I did not know even existed – The Whitby Whalebones, which are used to create a nice “frame” for photographing the Abbey from a far.
All in all, it was a really nice day, much better to see the town when there are no festivals going on and I am sure to be back at some point in the not too distant future.
