July 29, 2019: Saltburn to Staithes
On a foggy morning Gavan and I have just left Saltburn and begun our climb up Hunt Cliff.
At 11:45 on the morning of Sunday, July 28, I dragged my heavy case downstairs and lofted it and my knapsack into the boot of the minicab that would now take me to King’s Cross. I was off on the second walking expedition of the summer – a resumption of the walk Gavan and I had undertaken in 2018 on the Cleveland Way. Then we had reached the seaside town of Saltburn, which has train service, so now we would begin Part II in this same place above the North Sea. Gavan, with his usual talent for travel complexities, was flying from Wroclaw in Poland to Newcastle this afternoon – and we would meet in Saltburn on the eve of the day’s first march.
It has been an anxious time for me since weather disruptions has played havoc with the train schedule and when I arrived at my station I noted that some St. Pancras trains were operating out of King’s Cross still. My 1:00 train seemed to be on schedule and I had plenty of time to buy some lunch and sit in a chair – where my neighbor, a woman with piles of luggage, kept falling asleep and slumping against me. I was able to use my phone to let Gavan know that I had departed on time.
It was a gray day as we spend north. I read some articles and ate my avocado and bacon sandwich. Soon, however, I noticed that we were falling behind schedule and, indeed, by the time we reached Darlington we were about ten minutes late. Heavily laden I made my way over to the platform I needed for the connection to Saltburn; I needn’t have hurried for it was a few minutes late as well. I let Gavan know of my progress and was gratified to learn that he had already landed in Newcastle and that he would be only two hours behind me.
I couldn’t loft my heavy case onto the rack above my seat but the train wasn’t crowded and I just left my luggage on the seat. Tribes of teenage girls shared my compartment for much of the way. When I arrived in Saltburn at about 4:45 I discovered that a light drizzle was falling and I had to fish my rain jacket out of my knapsack. Saltburn was hosting a summertime festival and so many people now wanted to join my train for its return journey that many had to stand. A brass band was playing at one end of the platform as I made my way through the sodden and sozzled vacationers in the direction of the Victoria Hotel, just two blocks away.
There didn’t seem to be a section in this downmarket establishment devoted to reception but I finally found a barman who summoned a colleague. He wanted to know if this were a late booking (Gavan had begun the reservation process in January) but eventually they found us on their books and I was shown to a twin room upstairs. In shabby surroundings I unpacked and rested and at about 6:15 I want downstairs on my way back to the train halt. I asked about breakfast times but I needn’t have bothered – the Vic doesn’t do breakfasts.
Gavan’s train was on time and he was first off the forward carriage – and I was mighty glad to see him, my faithful walking partner for the last 30 years. After he had deposited his bags in our room we went off to find some place to eat. A lot of places were by now closed but there was a lively scene at the nearby Thai Restaurant, Coco and Rum, and here, after moving away from a drafty door, we settled down for our Pad Thai and our first pints.
On the way back to our hotel Gavan began to search out the next day’s breakfast possibilities, finally deciding to call last year’s place of accommodation, the Spa Hotel, to ask if they served this meal to non-residents. They did and so only one more question needed to be asked of the bar staff at the Vic – where should we leave our bags for collection by the Sherpa Van people, who would once again ferry our luggage forward. This question seemed to perplex the staff but eventually a manager was summoned and he showed me a spot at the foot of our stairs.
Gavan decided to dry his swimming trunks from a spot on one of our windows – adding to the sordid scene by dislodging some plaster that fell on an air-conditioning unit below. We were both pretty tired and glad to turn in at our usual early hour – though little kids racing up and down the hall didn’t help.
When we made our way down the stairs on the morning of Monday, July 29, there was a problem. We could leave our bags at the foot of the stairs but the door into the pub itself was locked and there was no one about. Gavan eventually reached the manager on the phone and he described how we could use a rear set of fire escape stairs to leave the building. It meant climbing back to our floor first and using a metal staircase to reach the cooking oil cans that lined an alleyway. No breakfast, no twenty-four hour staff, locked doors – the Vic was a hotel in name only.
I unfolded my new cane, lofted my backpack and we dropped down to the Spa Hotel – where we were shown into a portion of the dining area reserved for non-guests. At another table there were two middle-aged women and a teenaged girl plus two dogs. They had been exiled as well. I had my usual scrambled eggs on toast, used the loos, and at 9:45 we were off. It was a later time than we like to get going but the distance to our nighttime town did not seem too daunting and we were not too discouraged.
We followed the coast road around a curve, passed the Ship Inn and used steps to begin the first stages of a steady climb up Hunt Cliff. Steps had also been cut into the turf and they lead to a Cleveland Way memorial stone – where we paused for some “before” pictures. Our breakfast companions, it turned out, were also walking the Cleveland Way and they took some pictures of the two of us together.
It was a dark and gloomy morning and I kept my rain jacket on for the first few hours. The higher we rose the grander the vistas, with a foggy Saltburn receding in the distance behind us and the hillside still rising above. Many memorial plaques on slate were embedded in the turf at cliff edge – some warning of the dangers of the cliff path and some memorializing those who had fallen to their deaths from Hunt Cliff. There were some lovely wildflowers at our feet and some heather was in bloom as well but the dominant splash of magenta bloom was supplied on this trip by rosebay willowherb. A sculpture called “The Charm Bracelet” also provided some visual variety as walked along the trackbed of a mineral railway. Indeed, a train soon passed us on the right – its movement immortalized by a video on Gavan’s phone. Eventually we began to descend to the seaside town of Skinningrove.
The path approaches Skinningrove.
We hadn’t brought any food with us because I had convinced Gavan that there must be some lunch on offer in this village. A practical nurse was just emerging from a visit to a client who maintained a gnome-filled garden and we asked her what to look for. The only bar was still ten-minutes up the hill and (as she failed to mentioned a nearby fish and chips emporium) we settled for the town post-office/shop and here we bought some sandwiches and crisps – consuming them on a nearby bench.
More steps led from Skinningrove harbor up to the cliffs overlooking Hammersea Beach. We turned inland briefly and passed a farmhouse, using stiles to continue our climb. As often happens, particularly on uphill stretches, Gavan was often far ahead of me. We were both taking lots of pictures, though I still used my camera and he used only his phone. At 666 feet we reached, above Rock Cliff, the highest cliff on the east coast of England.
Much of the territory we passed through had an industrial atmosphere, with mining a principal activity, but this did not lessen the wonderful prospects out to sea and ahead to landmarks still to come These included Boulby and the roadway that would at last lead us to our nighttime village of Staithes. It seemed to take forever to get there though by this time we had the emergence of sunny skies to cheer us on.
The seaside village of Staithes.
Gavan began to fret as we dropped steeply down to the charming harbor town since it soon became obvious that he had booked us into a b&b far above the village and we would now have quite a climb on village streets to reach it. I was fretting that we would have to repeat all of this for our evening meal but as we neared Roraima House I noted happily that nearby we would have the presence of the Captain Cook Inn.
It was 5:30 when we knocked on the door of our b&b. We were soon shown to our room by our hostess Jane – but not before she had offered me two glasses of cold water. As usually happened on this trip we were asked to state our breakfast preferences on arrival and we complied. Then each of us had a shower, relaxing after a 9.5 mile day with a lot of up and down. The beer went down well with dinner at the Captain Cook and there was still light in the sky when we returned to our room.
This was the time of day, incidentally, when Gavan was busy with texts and phone calls to Jill – for there had been a great change in my friend’s life since last we walked. He had fallen in love with a chaplaincy intern at his hospital and, in fact, had tied the knot only a few weeks earlier – with a grander wedding ceremony scheduled for next June. Because of the time difference he could be texting Jill in the wee small hours and I often saw him, as on this night, staring intently at his phone in the next bed.
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