Family Holiday 2013 - Yorkshire (longish with photos!)
Because of the ongoing uncertainty about my job, and whether we'd need to be moving house this summer, we hadn't actually booked a cottage for our family holiday this year. I was working towards and fairly hopeful of achieving a department move which would delay my job's moving by 2.5 more years, but that was still very much in the air, my job moves next February, we didn't want to move the kids mid-school-year, but we had to move before February if we were to get relocation expenses back. So it was all a bit stressy until I figured that if worst came to worst we could probably make things work if I week-commuted there, and whilst that'd cost us in travel/accommodation and forfeiting the relocation, it'd cost us an awful lot more to buy Alex an education as good as that he's getting at his current school. Which now gave us a workable fall-back plan, let us scrub the idea of moving this summer. And meant we could - very belatedly - start thinking about a holiday!
Now we have certain requirements in a holiday cottage. It must be spacious, comfortable, out in quiet pretty countryside, not too far from decent sandy beaches, and have a decent kitchen. Oh and ideally with lots of opportunities to see steam trains nearby
There then ensued an unsurprising but still frustrating number of that's-a-nice-cottage-oh-damn-it's-booked-out incidents, the most frustrating being the one where we actually tried to book the place (in Wales) only to find they hadn't bothered to update their availability chart recently and it wasn't actually free that week after all. Grrr.
But then I found a cottage in Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors. Pretty countryside, check, Facilities, check. Location - hm, where exactly in the village is it (because cottage websites aren't always informative to that level of detail)? Check the pan-around-garden view on website ... there's a river ... there's a bridge ... AND THERE'S A STATION WATER CRANE!!! OMG! And one quick check of Google imagery confirmed it was indeed a holiday cottage right next to Goathland station on the North Yorkshire Moors (steam) railway. And from the cottage front gate to the platform gate was all of perhaps 20 or 30 yards. *And*, most importantly, it wasn't booked-up yet. Win win win!
So this is the cottage (as seen from the river bridge). It's actually the old Goathland Mill, dating back to the 1500s or so - the owners have put together a folder tracing the building's history, and there's a list of all the mill owners right back when which is rather nice. It spent a while as a village hydro generator, but then there was a very bad fire and it was substantially rebuilt. And sometime thereafter, restored-up as rather nice holiday accommodation with a spacious lounge/kitchen/diner on upper floor and two bedrooms below.
We drove up on the Saturday, in somewhat miserable weather, but armed at least with a passably optimistic forecast - generally cloudy with sunny intervals, brightening through the week. Cottage was all we had hoped in terms of comfort, and bar the usual squabbles between the kids on who gets to sleep in which bed, all looked good.
Sunday, we started with a walk up past the station - our cottage is perhaps 30m out of shot to the right. If the station looks familiar, that may be because it's where they filmed for Hogsmeade station in the Harry Potter films!
And over the hill to the nearby village of Darnholm, where we'd stayed a few years back. It has a ford with stepping stones, where Alex had had much fun splashing about, albeit at the cost of having to pour water out of his wellies afterwards. Sadly the water level was too low to cover the ford this day, but we were at least able to keep up with tradition... (Amy is actually sitting on what would be a stepping stone - the water does actually cover that roadway when there's been more rain!)
After watching a couple of trains go by - Darnholm curve is a great spot for train-watching as the engines are working hard up the gradient to Goathland - we wandered back to Goathland and thence through the village to the path to Mallyan Spout waterfall. This entails a pleasant enough walk along the stream, or at least would have been if A1 aka "I'm not quite a teenager but I can still be Captain Sulky" hadn't decided he was *bored*. Fortunately his boredom didn't survive prolonged encounter with the possibilities of a streamside in terms of stone-skimming (fortunately without beaning me in the head this year!) and dam-building...
(Sadly or fortunately, depending on one's point of view, he managed to recover his balance again without falling!)
Wandering back, I gave the family a choice. We could walk back uphill back to Goathland, or we could walk a longer distance but downhill along the old railway trail to Grosmont and then take a train back to the cottage. The vote went for downhill, and we had a pleasant walk along the comfortable trail, enlivened by a couple of good streamside pebble-beaches and with some fortunate timing in bringing us to a spot with a good view of the line just as a train was passing... (I'll admit this shot doesn't exactly scream "Yorkshire"!)
Not sure I'd have done this walk if we hadn't been this way before, as we didn't have that much time in hand before the last train of the day. But we arrived in comfortable time and were duly able to get a train right back to our doorstep. Life is tough.
Last time we were here, the running joke was that every time we saw a train, the engine was "Repton" (a Southern Railway 'Schools' 4-4-0). Whether walking down to the line to see one pass, or catching it in a station, it seemed forever Repton, Repton, Repton! Well, Repton is currently sitting in a siding at Grosmont awaiting overhaul, so clearly we needed a replacement this year. And it turned out to be the LMS Black Five "Eric Treacy" (named after the famous Anglican Bishop railway photographer), mostly because it usually pulled the first train of the day which tended to be the one we were around to wander up and watch!
Monday dawned reasonably sunny, and whilst the forecast for Tuesday was brighter, the kids were agitating for the beach so we decided to go for it. Lissa had been recommended a beach to the North of Whitby - maybe 20 minutes drive from the cottage - and we duly gave that a try. I'd have to say it wasn't quite beach weather - nice enough when the sun was out but a bit windy any time it went behind the clouds which it did with moderate frequency. But the kids had fun enough and it was a good day.
Tuesday we decided to hit York for trains and a tea-shop. Well, last time we were there I'd gone to the National Railway Museum whilst Lissa and Jenny went to Betty's Teashop. So this time L wanted to see the museum and then go to the teashop. So we did!
Now this year is the 75th Anniversary of Mallard's speed record, so to commemorate this the museum had decided to reunite all six surviving A4 class engines by temporarily borrowing (and sprucing up) "Dwight D Eisenhower" and "Dominion of Canada" from their respective museums across the pond. Sadly, the week we were there wasn't one of those when all six engines were present, but we did get to see a lineup of three, which does make for a rather pretty sight. (Plus the fourth, "Bittern", I later found out the back!)
And then, after a long but not unexpected queue, there was teashop. And scones and cream. And Eton Mess. And life was again tough.
Wednesday was forecast as a little iffy, though in the event we only had about 10 minutes of very light rain late morning. Lissa wanted to go to the Egton agricultural show but, figuring that wouldn't be Alex's cup of tea, we arranged that I'd drop her and Amy there and then go over to nearby Grosmont to go poke about the engine sheds and shops, heading back to pick them up later. Which we duly did, and Alex and I managed to make it five A4s for the week when we found "Sir Nigel Gresley" in the sheds. They were busy hooking it up to a diesel shunting whilst loading up to the coaling tower with coal, so we kind of hoped they were about to coal it at the stage, but sadly not - just moving it from the main shed to its storage shed. And, also sadly, it wasn't scheduled to be pulling any trains that week. Meh.
I did however find this - you know what this is, right..?
Yes, that's right, it's the North Yorkshire Moors Railway Spring Collection..
Sorry (he lied).
We then headed over to another waterfall, a few miles south of Whitby. Which was pretty enough, but the real highlight was that in a stream pond there there was a wooden boat in which the kids had an absolute whale of a time messing about.
It turned out that the boat belonged to the three kids who lived there (presumably the kids of the people who run the tearooms next to the waterfall) - who are the ones in back of shot in wet suits. Alex so wants their lives, to have a pond like this right on their doorstep. One can see his point!
And that evening Lissa wanted to go back to Magpie's Café in Whitby, a distinctly nice fish restaurant (or so I'm told by those who like fish - fortunately they serve other things too!). It usually means a queue of 20-25 minutes to get in - it is rather popular - but the meals are worth it.
Thursday, because we hadn't gone there last time here, and because we wouldn't be taking the kids to Thorpe Park this year (instead having a couple of days in France in the last week of hols, but that for another post - maybe!), we took them to Flamingoland which is a combo zoo and amusement park. Somewhere between nicely and annoyingly this actually turned out to be nicest day of the week in terms of weather, early cloud clearing away to be hot and sunny throughout. (Appreciation of the local weather was heightened on checking the Test Match score and finding that as of 2pm there had been no play possible in London because of heavy rain!).
And much fun was had...
One particular favourite was a ride called Splash Battle, not so much for the riding as for the fact that scattered around it were water cannons which the public were invited to use (and for free, unlike similar ones at Thorpe Park) to soak those actually on the ride. Okay, those on the ride did have water guns to shoot back, BUT ... those on the ride are hand-pumped whereas those on the side were electric. The kids absolutely loved it!
Though Alex did then decide he wanted to ride it (figuring he'd already got wet playing in a water park area). Though he possibly shouldn't have been surprised to find both mum and dad waiting for him on the cannons...
Friday, Lissa had noticed a place on the Whitby river (the Esk) which hired out canoes and thought that might be fun. Which it was - for three of us. Sadly, despite starting very happily, Alex managed via some combination of getting blisters, banging his knuckles and seeing Amy now doing better than him to totally lose both cool and confidence with the whole idea. Which was a shame, but after calming down he expressed a desire to try it again, albeit this time with some gloves. But that aside, it was a lot of fun, for all I think several muscles regretted it a couple of days later!
Its still being only late morning, we decided on a whim to head down to Bridlington where there was a rock factory which did guided tours and offered hands-on sweetmaking. And the kids duly had fun rolling out their own sticks of rock, though were disappointed later to discover the sticks they'd made and been allowed to take away were aniseed flavour - honestly, what was the place thinking? Aniseed? When most kids don't like it? Though it equally has to be said that Alex at least wasn't left short of rock as in the factory shop they had a big bin of bargain bags of "broken" rock and fudge, an offer of which he was quick to avail himself. Life was tough...
And that was that for the holiday - where did it go? Saturday dawned drizzly with the likelihood of heavier rain later, but I'd have to say to have rain on turnover days and sunshine most of the week does make a pleasant change from most of our recent holidays which have a horrible habit of being the other way around! And there was one final bonus as we all headed out to see the first train of the day and our last train of the week. For some reason the schedule had clearly changed, and for once it wasn't "Eric Treacy" on the first train but "Sir Nigel Gresley". Oh yes.
A pleasant way to end a good holiday.
Now we have certain requirements in a holiday cottage. It must be spacious, comfortable, out in quiet pretty countryside, not too far from decent sandy beaches, and have a decent kitchen. Oh and ideally with lots of opportunities to see steam trains nearby
There then ensued an unsurprising but still frustrating number of that's-a-nice-cottage-oh-damn-it's-booked-out incidents, the most frustrating being the one where we actually tried to book the place (in Wales) only to find they hadn't bothered to update their availability chart recently and it wasn't actually free that week after all. Grrr.
But then I found a cottage in Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors. Pretty countryside, check, Facilities, check. Location - hm, where exactly in the village is it (because cottage websites aren't always informative to that level of detail)? Check the pan-around-garden view on website ... there's a river ... there's a bridge ... AND THERE'S A STATION WATER CRANE!!! OMG! And one quick check of Google imagery confirmed it was indeed a holiday cottage right next to Goathland station on the North Yorkshire Moors (steam) railway. And from the cottage front gate to the platform gate was all of perhaps 20 or 30 yards. *And*, most importantly, it wasn't booked-up yet. Win win win!
So this is the cottage (as seen from the river bridge). It's actually the old Goathland Mill, dating back to the 1500s or so - the owners have put together a folder tracing the building's history, and there's a list of all the mill owners right back when which is rather nice. It spent a while as a village hydro generator, but then there was a very bad fire and it was substantially rebuilt. And sometime thereafter, restored-up as rather nice holiday accommodation with a spacious lounge/kitchen/diner on upper floor and two bedrooms below.
We drove up on the Saturday, in somewhat miserable weather, but armed at least with a passably optimistic forecast - generally cloudy with sunny intervals, brightening through the week. Cottage was all we had hoped in terms of comfort, and bar the usual squabbles between the kids on who gets to sleep in which bed, all looked good.
Sunday, we started with a walk up past the station - our cottage is perhaps 30m out of shot to the right. If the station looks familiar, that may be because it's where they filmed for Hogsmeade station in the Harry Potter films!
And over the hill to the nearby village of Darnholm, where we'd stayed a few years back. It has a ford with stepping stones, where Alex had had much fun splashing about, albeit at the cost of having to pour water out of his wellies afterwards. Sadly the water level was too low to cover the ford this day, but we were at least able to keep up with tradition... (Amy is actually sitting on what would be a stepping stone - the water does actually cover that roadway when there's been more rain!)
After watching a couple of trains go by - Darnholm curve is a great spot for train-watching as the engines are working hard up the gradient to Goathland - we wandered back to Goathland and thence through the village to the path to Mallyan Spout waterfall. This entails a pleasant enough walk along the stream, or at least would have been if A1 aka "I'm not quite a teenager but I can still be Captain Sulky" hadn't decided he was *bored*. Fortunately his boredom didn't survive prolonged encounter with the possibilities of a streamside in terms of stone-skimming (fortunately without beaning me in the head this year!) and dam-building...
(Sadly or fortunately, depending on one's point of view, he managed to recover his balance again without falling!)
Wandering back, I gave the family a choice. We could walk back uphill back to Goathland, or we could walk a longer distance but downhill along the old railway trail to Grosmont and then take a train back to the cottage. The vote went for downhill, and we had a pleasant walk along the comfortable trail, enlivened by a couple of good streamside pebble-beaches and with some fortunate timing in bringing us to a spot with a good view of the line just as a train was passing... (I'll admit this shot doesn't exactly scream "Yorkshire"!)
Not sure I'd have done this walk if we hadn't been this way before, as we didn't have that much time in hand before the last train of the day. But we arrived in comfortable time and were duly able to get a train right back to our doorstep. Life is tough.
Last time we were here, the running joke was that every time we saw a train, the engine was "Repton" (a Southern Railway 'Schools' 4-4-0). Whether walking down to the line to see one pass, or catching it in a station, it seemed forever Repton, Repton, Repton! Well, Repton is currently sitting in a siding at Grosmont awaiting overhaul, so clearly we needed a replacement this year. And it turned out to be the LMS Black Five "Eric Treacy" (named after the famous Anglican Bishop railway photographer), mostly because it usually pulled the first train of the day which tended to be the one we were around to wander up and watch!
Monday dawned reasonably sunny, and whilst the forecast for Tuesday was brighter, the kids were agitating for the beach so we decided to go for it. Lissa had been recommended a beach to the North of Whitby - maybe 20 minutes drive from the cottage - and we duly gave that a try. I'd have to say it wasn't quite beach weather - nice enough when the sun was out but a bit windy any time it went behind the clouds which it did with moderate frequency. But the kids had fun enough and it was a good day.
Tuesday we decided to hit York for trains and a tea-shop. Well, last time we were there I'd gone to the National Railway Museum whilst Lissa and Jenny went to Betty's Teashop. So this time L wanted to see the museum and then go to the teashop. So we did!
Now this year is the 75th Anniversary of Mallard's speed record, so to commemorate this the museum had decided to reunite all six surviving A4 class engines by temporarily borrowing (and sprucing up) "Dwight D Eisenhower" and "Dominion of Canada" from their respective museums across the pond. Sadly, the week we were there wasn't one of those when all six engines were present, but we did get to see a lineup of three, which does make for a rather pretty sight. (Plus the fourth, "Bittern", I later found out the back!)
And then, after a long but not unexpected queue, there was teashop. And scones and cream. And Eton Mess. And life was again tough.
Wednesday was forecast as a little iffy, though in the event we only had about 10 minutes of very light rain late morning. Lissa wanted to go to the Egton agricultural show but, figuring that wouldn't be Alex's cup of tea, we arranged that I'd drop her and Amy there and then go over to nearby Grosmont to go poke about the engine sheds and shops, heading back to pick them up later. Which we duly did, and Alex and I managed to make it five A4s for the week when we found "Sir Nigel Gresley" in the sheds. They were busy hooking it up to a diesel shunting whilst loading up to the coaling tower with coal, so we kind of hoped they were about to coal it at the stage, but sadly not - just moving it from the main shed to its storage shed. And, also sadly, it wasn't scheduled to be pulling any trains that week. Meh.
I did however find this - you know what this is, right..?
Yes, that's right, it's the North Yorkshire Moors Railway Spring Collection..
Sorry (he lied).
We then headed over to another waterfall, a few miles south of Whitby. Which was pretty enough, but the real highlight was that in a stream pond there there was a wooden boat in which the kids had an absolute whale of a time messing about.
It turned out that the boat belonged to the three kids who lived there (presumably the kids of the people who run the tearooms next to the waterfall) - who are the ones in back of shot in wet suits. Alex so wants their lives, to have a pond like this right on their doorstep. One can see his point!
And that evening Lissa wanted to go back to Magpie's Café in Whitby, a distinctly nice fish restaurant (or so I'm told by those who like fish - fortunately they serve other things too!). It usually means a queue of 20-25 minutes to get in - it is rather popular - but the meals are worth it.
Thursday, because we hadn't gone there last time here, and because we wouldn't be taking the kids to Thorpe Park this year (instead having a couple of days in France in the last week of hols, but that for another post - maybe!), we took them to Flamingoland which is a combo zoo and amusement park. Somewhere between nicely and annoyingly this actually turned out to be nicest day of the week in terms of weather, early cloud clearing away to be hot and sunny throughout. (Appreciation of the local weather was heightened on checking the Test Match score and finding that as of 2pm there had been no play possible in London because of heavy rain!).
And much fun was had...
One particular favourite was a ride called Splash Battle, not so much for the riding as for the fact that scattered around it were water cannons which the public were invited to use (and for free, unlike similar ones at Thorpe Park) to soak those actually on the ride. Okay, those on the ride did have water guns to shoot back, BUT ... those on the ride are hand-pumped whereas those on the side were electric. The kids absolutely loved it!
Though Alex did then decide he wanted to ride it (figuring he'd already got wet playing in a water park area). Though he possibly shouldn't have been surprised to find both mum and dad waiting for him on the cannons...
Friday, Lissa had noticed a place on the Whitby river (the Esk) which hired out canoes and thought that might be fun. Which it was - for three of us. Sadly, despite starting very happily, Alex managed via some combination of getting blisters, banging his knuckles and seeing Amy now doing better than him to totally lose both cool and confidence with the whole idea. Which was a shame, but after calming down he expressed a desire to try it again, albeit this time with some gloves. But that aside, it was a lot of fun, for all I think several muscles regretted it a couple of days later!
Its still being only late morning, we decided on a whim to head down to Bridlington where there was a rock factory which did guided tours and offered hands-on sweetmaking. And the kids duly had fun rolling out their own sticks of rock, though were disappointed later to discover the sticks they'd made and been allowed to take away were aniseed flavour - honestly, what was the place thinking? Aniseed? When most kids don't like it? Though it equally has to be said that Alex at least wasn't left short of rock as in the factory shop they had a big bin of bargain bags of "broken" rock and fudge, an offer of which he was quick to avail himself. Life was tough...
And that was that for the holiday - where did it go? Saturday dawned drizzly with the likelihood of heavier rain later, but I'd have to say to have rain on turnover days and sunshine most of the week does make a pleasant change from most of our recent holidays which have a horrible habit of being the other way around! And there was one final bonus as we all headed out to see the first train of the day and our last train of the week. For some reason the schedule had clearly changed, and for once it wasn't "Eric Treacy" on the first train but "Sir Nigel Gresley". Oh yes.
A pleasant way to end a good holiday.