Another Long Walk: Day 14: All Aboard the Hogwarts Express!

August 7, 2024: I slept well, but everything was super wet in the morning. No rain, but lots of condensation both inside and outside of the tent. I was surprised by the amount of condensation in the tent--that was the first time that happened with this tent! It wasn't enough to form puddles or anything like that, but it left everything wet like my sleeping bag, pack and even electronics like my phone and Kindle.

You can see the sun trying to break through the thick fog, but it failed.

But I packed up and hit the trail relatively early since it was supposed to rain later in the afternoon and I wanted to get in as many miles as I could before that started. I know, I shouldn't even look at the weather forecast, but it was an addiction. I couldn't help myself. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst! I hoped things would be sunny and clear all day, but I was planning for rain--especially later in the day when the forecast showed that's when it would arrive.

There was a tiny bit of sun in the morning, directly overhead, while I walked through the thick fog, but even that little bit of sun didn't last. Those few minutes were very rejuvenating, though! The last couple of days with the endless fog and wet had been very demoralizing.

Most of the day, the trail followed roads. Several miles were along paved roads, but--fortunately--the majority was along gravel and dirt roads that were easy, flat and fast to walk along.

While entering the town of Grosmont, there was a bridge with a sign saying that the road was closed due to a "police incident." What the heck did that mean? Clearly, cars could not go over the bridge even if they wanted to, but were pedestrians allowed? That was unclear.... nothing said that pedestrians weren't allowed, but it also didn't say that pedestrians were allowed either.

That's just for cars, right? Please let that not apply to pedestrians!

I puzzled over this for about 10 seconds. I was going to cross that bridge. Mostly because I had absolutely no idea how long it would take for me to find a walking route that crossed a bridge somewhere else. It's not like I could walk an extra hour or two out of my way just to get across the river! So I started heading over the bridge.

In the middle of the bridge, I saw a giant chunk of the wall that kept cars on the road had fallen off and into the river. That must be the reason the bridge was closed. A local couple who were out for a walk came up behind me about half a minute later and told me that a car had driven off the bridge earlier in the week and landed in the river. The driver (probably drunk or high or a teenager or something) was rescued and was largely fine and the vehicle removed from the river, but the damage to the bridge had yet to be fixed.

We looked over the side of the bridge into the creek maybe 50 feet below. "And the driver survived? Really?" I said. He must have been pretty lucky!

I continued walking into town and came across another surprise, another hiker! Well, there were hikers all over the place, that wasn't particularly surprising. But I knew this one--he was the very first hiker I met on my first day on this trail with the fancy Texas-style cowboy hat. The last time I saw him was on the second day, just before the day with the biblical rains. I half expected him to quit because he seemed to really be struggling even before that storm, so it was somewhat of a surprise to run into him again.

He, however, was positively astonished when he recognized me. He assumed that I was far ahead. Of course, he had no way of knowing that I had taken three (!!!) zero days trying to avoid rain, which did put a dent in my miles. =)

He told me about his adventures (and misadventures) on the trail, and that he had almost decided to quit the trail, and that one night he slept under a bus stop or something, but managed to keep going. Now he planned to finish the trail today (today?!), or at least before 8:00am tomorrow morning when his family was planning to drive out to pick him up.

Knowing how far away the end of the trail was, this seemed like a rather ambitious goal, especially since it was already after noon and he had hiked quit a bit this morning. If he succeeded, he would arrive at Robin Hood's Bay well after sunset. Possible, but not fun!

I said something about being impressed--I didn't think I could do 15+ miles this late in the day. He seemed a little taken aback by that. "It's that far away?"

"Uhh... yeah, I think so."

I didn't know precisely how far it was, but it was definitely a full day of hiking for me. If I tried to get there today, I'd have needed to complete about 32 miles from where I camped last night. He hadn't camped as far back as I did, but it still would have been a solid 20+ miles for him--which was a lot.

But, as he told me, he was meeting his family at a specific time early tomorrow morning so that was the goal he had to hit. He would camp under another bus shelter if he had to, he told me.

Then he insisted on taking a photo of us together, somehow enjoying the symmetry of running into me on both his first and last day of hiking, but not really anything in between. =)

We walked the rest of the way into Grosmont together, only another 5 or 10 minutes, then parted ways. He had the end of the trail to reach! I, however, needed a break. I had walked non-stop since leaving the Lion Inn and my feet were throbbing!

Plus, it was lunch time, so I stopped at the Station Tavern where I ordered a ham and cheese toastie and two pints of Coke. While eating lunch, I was able to charge my battery packs, use the wi-fi and make a trip to the toilets.

I stopped at the Station Tavern (in the building on the left) for lunch and just to rest my weary feet.

The wi-fi was particularly useful since I planned to finish the trail tomorrow but I had no lodging in Robin Hood's Bay. So I wound up booking a bed at the YHA hostel just south of the town and now had a confirmed place to stay tomorrow night. I still had no idea where I would spend tonight, but I supposed I could also sleep in a bus stop like my English cowboy friend in a pinch. =)

In all, I spent about 1.5 hours taking a break, during which time, the sun even came out a little bit--much to my surprise and despite all weather forecasts.

A part of me wanted to take advantage of the sun and cut my lunch break short and keep moving, but, alas, I was actually waiting for something. At 2:30 in the afternoon, the Hogwarts Express was expected to arrive.

The Hogwarts Express has arrived!

There are a few steam engines that run train routes through this area, and they are "headquartered" in this town. If you check the schedule--which I did--you can see working steam trains coming through town pretty much every day. I had even considered riding one to a nearby town to a cheap hostel for the night and ride it back in the morning tomorrow, but I really wanted to get more miles in today and ultimately decided against it.

However! I still wanted to see the steam train. And, while you might have thought I joked about waiting to see the Hogwarts Express, these were the actual steam trains used in the Harry Potter movies. It was the original Hogwarts Express!

I had a view of the train station from my lunch table and could see the train when it chugged into town, and as soon as it arrived, I paid my bill and dashed outside to get photos and videos. The train stopped at the train station for perhaps 5 to 10 minutes, then chugged onward back out of town. What an incredible machine! It seemed like the entire town showed up to watch it pass through, with a hundred people milling around watching the spectacle.

After the train left, I wasn't quite ready to leave town. Like I mentioned before, Grosmont was actually the "headquarters" for these steam trains and they opened the machine shop for visitors to check out, which was located on the far side of the oldest railroad tunnel in the world.

A nearby sign explains that this is the oldest railroad tunnel in the world. Obviously, it's no longer used for rail traffic, but it claims to be the first tunnel in the world that was explicitly built for trains to use. (There's a tunnel just to the right off the photo that is used for rail traffic now. It's much larger than the original tunnel, but less historic!)

The railroad tunnel is no longer used for trains but is now a pedestrian path to the machine shop, so I walked through the tunnel and checked out the shop which had several steam trains that were currently not running. I didn't see any work being performed on them, but the place was hopping with tourists looking around at everything. I also looked through the gift shop but didn't see anything that drew my attention enough to make me want to carry it to the to the end of the trail!

Finally, after exploring all the railroad history in the town, I continued the day's hike at around 3:00pm. The fog came back, and the rest of the day's hike was eventful albeit dreary. However, despite the weather forecast that called for rain, no rain ever happened. So yeah! =)

And this is the machine shop for the steam engines.

My goal for the day had been to end up somewhere near Littlebeck for the night, and I wound up finding a nice place to wild camp in an empty field about a half-mile before that. The ground was more sloped than I thought when I set up the tent so I sometimes found myself sliding down to the end of it and needing to pull myself back to the uphill side. It was definitely an annoyance but not the end of the world.

Tomorrow, I hoped to reach the end of the trail. I did check the weather forecast, however, which--sadly--showed rain for the whole day. *sigh* Well, let's hope that forecast is bad as all the others! I'll find out tomorrow!