Day 16: The Extra Credit Assignment

September 9, 2024: I found myself with a whole day to do anything I wanted. I had finished the Coast to Coast route yesterday, but my transportation out of the country wasn't until late tomorrow. So.... what to do, what to do....?

I decided on doing an "extra credit" assignment and keep hiking. The Cleveland Way followed along the North Sea coast southward. I didn't actually know how far it went, but that didn't matter to me. The salient fact was that it appeared to be quite scenic since it followed the coast, a fact buttressed by the other fact that the trail was even a designated national trail of the UK. Plus, the cherry on top--the weather was expected to be fairy decent--but admittedly, I had less faith in weather predictions than when I first started hiking these trails. To be fair, the forecast did have a slight chance of rain later in the afternoon, but for the time being, the weather was looking great!

Onward to Scarborough!

The trail led south to the town of Scarborough, which was a town I needed to go to anyhow to catch the train. I could have taken the bus there, but since I had the time and the walk appeared to be quite pleasant, I figured it would be more fun just to walk there.

I did some Internet sleuthing the night before to learn more about the route--or rather, the section of the route between Robin Hood's Bay and Scarborough since that's the only section I intended to hike, but it was difficult for me to find solid information about it. The various sources I checked said that the distance was anywhere from 12 to 16 miles--which is actually quite a wide level of uncertainty. If I hiked at two miles per hour including breaks, that would be a 6 to 8 hour hike.

So I woke up and packed up, wanting to hit the trail as early as possible. If it did rain in the afternoon, I wanted to get as many of those miles in beforehand as I could. Thus, I was on the trail and hiking by 7:30am.

The tide was very high when I started, marking quite the contrast from what it looked like the day before.

The tide was quite high when I started in the morning. Not to worry, the trail doesn't go into the water here. It'll veer up to the top of that cliff on the right on a trail that's not in the photo!

 

The trail wasn't particularly hard, but there were a few ups and downs and the trail followed the top of the cliffs of varying heights along the coast, then descending into creek valleys before rising up again. So I wouldn't call the trail flat, although in many places it was.

For several miles, I could look back and see Robin Hood's Bay. Without the thick fog, the area really was quite scenic!

Eventually the route passed the ruins of an old alum plant. I wasn't really sure what alum was and looked it up online later which described the substance as: "a colorless astringent compound that is a hydrated double sulfate of aluminum and potassium, used in solution medicinally and in dyeing and tanning."

So there you go. The former site of where alum was manufactured hundreds of years ago.

Some of the ruins from an old alum factory.

The route also passed an old radar station that was used during WW2. Some signs were erected nearby to tell the story of the British defending against the German bombers during the war.

The trail was surprisingly empty. After the relatively crowded section of trail coming into Robin Hood's Bay, I expected an equal number of day hikers along this scenic stretch of trail. But no, I could count on one hand the number of people I passed along the way. That wasn't a bad thing, just a surprise.

Later in the day, the sun even came out for a bit. Although there hadn't been fog today, there were still plenty of clouds overhead to block the sun most of the time, but for the first time in days, I actually got short peeks of that giant ball of hydrogen in the sky.

And finally, I arrived in Scarborough. By the time I arrived at 3:00pm, the tide was notably lower than when I started in the morning 7.5 hours earlier. Seeing as tides typically go up and down in 6 hour intervals from their extremes, it seemed that I largely started near a high tide and finished near a low tide. Mostly, I liked that because I enjoy seeing visible changes in the tide. It's a really interesting phenomena, don't you think?

The tide was noticeably lower as I neared Scarborough!

In Scarborough, I detoured off the Cleveland Way to check into the Delmont Hotel which I had booked the previous night. Room 313 if you want to follow in my footsteps. I took the stairs up, though, not the elevator (or lift, as the locals would say), which seemed to confuse the clerk manning the front desk.

I emptied my pack, taking just some snacks, a water bottle and my fancy camera with the zoom lens before heading out the door again. Although I had arrived in town and checked into the hotel, that was not the most scenic of places to end the trail for Walking 4 Fun. Nope, I had a better idea. I was going to hike out to Scarborough Castle and finish the walking route there.

I first spotted Scarborough Castle on the horizon about halfway through the day's hike. It was just a faint bump on the horizon that became larger and larger and clearer and clearer as the hours passed and I approached closer and closer. Now, it was practically just around the corner! I could even see it from the window of my hotel room!

On my phone, I looked at the map between the hotel and the castle to get a sense of how best to get there and noticed a marker for Anne Brontë's grave. Really? She was buried here?! Of course, she was the least famous of the Brontë sisters, but hey, another landmark I could take a photo of it on the way to the castle. It was literally in a church graveyard that was precisely on my route!

So I headed out of the hotel, and found the church. A sign pointed the way to her grave. She had two headstones now. The original was badly deteriorated and basically impossible to read and therefore a new one had been installed. I took some photos, then continued around the bend in the road to Scarborough Castle.

The two headstones of Anne Brontë. The older one is basically illegible because it's degraded so much, but the new one is laying on the ground in front of it with the original words of the old headstone. (Except it also says that she died when she was 29, not 28 like the original headstone read.)

 

The castle was full of history and stories. Much of the castle is ruins, but they are genuinely impressive ruins! The main keep towered high in the sky--or at least half if it did since the other half collapsed during a siege centuries earlier. Definitely a beautiful and interesting place to end this route!

I still had 60 pounds in cash on me--many of the smaller businesses along the trail only accepted cash so I always made sure to carry some, but I didn't really want to leave the country with that much in cash so I paid the entrance fee in cash. I needed to start using it up! I was scheduled to leave the Land of Pounds tomorrow and who knows when I would be back again?

When I first entered the castle, I was offered an audio tour of the grounds which was included with the ticket price, but I passed on it preferring just to read whatever signage was around explaining the sites. I walked into the castle grounds and almost immediately saw signs that simply said, "To learn more about what happened here, press 1 on your audio tour" type of thing. There was absolutely nothing to describe what I was looking at that could be read. So I turned around back to the entrance and asked for the audio tour after all. I wasn't going to learn anything about the history of this place without it!

Scarborough Castle was magnificent!

 

The castle was built at the top of a hill on a headland with commanding views in all directions, but the history of the site dates back far longer than I imagined. They've found evidence that the Vikings had used the location by around 800 BC. The Roman, of course, built a signal station on the hill. That, somehow, didn't surprise me. By this point I had learned that the Romans had thoroughly explored and controlled this area between (roughly) 100 and 400 AD, and of course they'd have a signal station on such a prominent point.

Over the last few thousand years, however, much of the shoreline has eroded away and it's believed that much of the archeological evidence from the Viking and Roman times eroded away with it. Oh, well....

The structures still standing today were originally built in the 1100s by Henry II. It was expanded and improved over the years, and being a royal residence, was quite luxurious in its day. 

Severe fighting occurred during the English Civil War which damaged many of the buildings and led to the partial collapse of the keep. But... the castle continued to function as a military post for centuries, with a military garrison stationed there until the mid 19th century. After that it continued to be used as a prison. One notable prisoner that some of you might have heard of is George Fox, founder of the Quakers, who had been imprisoned there in the 17th century.

 

The history of the castle kept going. During the early days of WWI, the Germans bombarded the town with a couple of warships, an event that killed 19 citizens and damaged the castle's keep, barracks and curtain walls. The barracks were later demolished due to the extensive damage, and the event became something of a rallying cry for the British. In my American head, I likened it to the "Remember the Alamo!" Except for them, of course, it would have been "Remember Scarborough!" And that was, in fact, the actual rallying cry. (You can read more about it at The Shelling of Scarborough.)

But even after that event, the location was used as a secret listening post during WWII.

There was nothing to suggest that it is still being used for any military purposes now, but it kind of makes you wonder, eh? =)

Anyhow, I found all this extremely fascinating and spent a couple of hours exploring the grounds. Eventually, the castle was scheduled to close soon, so I finally returned the audio tour and left the castle.

Now, it was time for dinner! Scrolling around Google Maps, I found a place called Cowshed Burgers that looked interesting, so I walked down to there where I ordered a BBQ burger and a Coke. Paid for in cash, of course, since I was still trying to use those pounds up.

Dinner at Cowshed Burgers

And finally, after that, I headed back to the hotel. The day was done! The hiking was done! And the adventure--after 47 days--was finally done. 

And thus ends this blog. At least until the Next Big Hike. If you're interested in virtually hiking the Coast to Coast Walk--including the "extra credit assignment" along the Cleveland Way to Scarborough--you'll find that available for premium members on Walking 4 Fun. So yes, you too can hike the Coast to Coast Walk! 

Looking back toward Robin Hood's Bay--the water level was much higher than when I arrived yesterday afternoon. It comes all the way up to the town's walls now!

The trail followed along the cliffs above the shoreline, but there were many places with giant cracks in the trail where the ledge was starting to erode away. It was such a big problem, they even posted a sign warning of the hazard and to stay away from those areas.

Look at that! Some blue sky and there's even sunlight in the distance!

An old radar station used to defend against Nazi attacks during WWII.

That bump on the hill in the distance is Scarborough Castle.

The castle kept getting closer and closer as the hours marched on!

This bird of prey seemed to be in hunting mode!

Scarborough! I see some of the civilization in Scarborough!