After a break of eight months, we were back retracing our steps in the Yorkshire Dales over the long Bank Holiday Easter weekend. It was nice to be back so soon after our last visit in August, and going up by train Thursday evening after work, and coming back yesterday morning via the excellent National Express East Coast service straight into the office made a pleasant change.
They were certainly an action-packed four days. On Good Friday we went to Richmond, which we missed last time, and walked around the hill upon which the castle sits, catching the River Swale falls, the likes of which are almost around every turn in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. A grey and damp day did nothing to dampen our spirits, though, and we spent the afternoon in Barnard Castle, before taking afternoon tea at the French chateau-like Bowes Museum.
Views of green stone-walled fields and sheep litter the pretty Coverdale
On Saturday morning we mooched around the centre of Darlington (it was our base for the long weekend, staying with Viv), before the weather broke and we were treated to very un-Bank Holiday like sunshine, which made the drive into Coverdale and down to Kettlewell very enjoyable. Driving over the steep green hills dotted with sheep and stone walls really does make you want to live there, cut off from the world, surrounded by the beauty of it all, but if you pick the right place, just a short drive from the nearest town.
If we thought we were lucky on Saturday, then Sunday’s sunny spells were even more of a gift. We’d planned to go around Pen-Y-Ghent, one of the Three Peaks in the area, but not long after we’d got on The Stang to the Tan Hill Inn (made famous by the 1970s Everest TV ads, and the highest pub in Great Britain at 1,732ft above sea level) and stopped every few minutes to cross rivers on stepping stones and stand in slightly damp fields to take pictures, we realised that we’d woefully not allowed enough time to fit it all into a day.
Blame that long holiday croissant/teacake/muffin breakfast. In the end, after a sunny lunch in Thwaite, we headed for Hawes (home of the Wensleydale Creamery, which we did last time), then through Gayle, and back down to Hubberholme, before once again stopping in Kettlewell. We hadn’t planned to end up there at all, but when Andrew announced that we had no reverse gear due to the gear knob coming off in his hand, we could do little else. And we only laughed because of the deadpan way that he told us, honest…
So, we didn’t make Pen-Y-Ghent, but we did make it home (the car surprisingly fixing itself, both long enough for us to enjoy the last day, and for Andrew and Sheila to make it home to Essex on Tuesday) for another large dinner, followed by more rounds of Rummikub and cards. Staying in Viv’s really has made it easier and more enjoyable than if we’d have been in a hotel, and with all our kit being taken up in the car prior to us leaving, we really couldn’t have managed it otherwise.
Bank Holiday Monday had planned to be a day in Durham, but although it was only a short car journey away, we took a detour and explored the industrial Teesport area of the north. A now faded source of industry (though oil refinery and power station chimneys still dominate the hazy skyline), it was a diverting visit, and after almost being stopped by the police for touring the estate, we travelled on the Middlesborough Transporter Bridge. Suspended in the nine-car carriage while it moved us 260 metres across the River Tees really was quite strange, but the speed at which it moved was impressive, the groaning of the wheels and cables a reminder of its heavy industrial past.
Cars are carried over the River Tees in the yellow cradle (left of picture)
Durham itself reminded me both of Cambridge and Norwich, its gothic-inspired cathedral and large riverside paths taking in the best of both cities. Unsurprisingly, we looked in wonder around the cathedral and enjoyed a sunlit stroll by the river, watching eager dogs swim in the river, collecting sticks thrown by their owners.
The magnificence and splendour of Durham’s gothic-inspired Cathedral
It really was all very relaxed, which sums up the four-day stay as a whole. Better than staying at home (where we’d invariably end up doing things around the house we shouldn’t, and not having a break), not only were the Dales their usually picture perfect selves, I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to spend the long Easter weekend.
Tags: Journal, Yorkshire Dales
Ah, the Transporter. You were lucky to find it working. My first job as a graphic designer was at the Teesside Times in 1983, located by the western leg of the bridge on the Middlesbrough side. The times I took a bus from my home in Hartlepool to the Transporter, only to find it wasn’t working and had to wait for another to take me the 10-mile trip round the estuary. So frustrating when I could actually see my office and my colleagues in the warm while I stood being whipped by the bitterly cold wind, facing the prospect of being an hour late for work with no way of letting them know I was there, looking at them.
There was always the possibility of using the footbridge across the top, but I never had the courage. My mother often told me the story of her night out in Middlesbrough when she, her friend and their dates missed the last bus home after a dance. The four of them climbed to the top and made their way across the footbridge in the dead of night and in their Teddy Boy suits and full skirts and kitten heels. Good job it was too dark to see down to the estuary.
The whole Teesport landscape was the inspiration for the setting and atomsphere of the film Blade Runner. Ridley Scott is the only person of note (apart from my good self) that Hartlepool Art College (or Cleveland College of Art & Design as it was in my day) produced. Everyone who I have driven to Hartlepool is always captivated when we come over the A19 flyover and see the industrial landscape laid out below and into the distance. It is impressive, maybe for all the wrong reasons, but impressive nonetheless.
Looking at that view from the opposite aspect from the beach at Seaton Carew and turn anti-clockwise, you will see great expanses of sea and then your eye will settle on the Headland and St Hilda’s church, one of the oldest churches in England, built by St Hilda, who also built Whitby Abbey. The juxtaposition of the ancient church atop the craggy entrance to the harbour, still standing, with the new, constantly destroying and polluting, on the opposite side of the bay, joined by the great body of seething North Sea has held me transfixed and contemplative on numerous occasions.
It is the one place I always return to. As my contact with my family in Hartlepool dwindles, I still go back, to see them, but also to stand on the beach at Seaton and look at the stark contrast of then and now. And to remember endless happy summers of sandcastles and swimming.