Day 18! We woke up early to a wet and grey morning in Northumberland which was fine because we were heading to a sunnier place today! We put the bed away and got straight on the open road! First stop; The Angel of the North!
The Angel of the North
The rain and grey skies gave way quite quickly into our 45 minute drive to the angel up north and turned into blue(ish) skies and a bit of sunlight!
It was a super easy drive, mainly main roads and parking was an absolute doddle! We got there by about 9am so the car park was quite empty, and we managed to swing Marv into a coach bay!
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting it to be on the side of a road and with nothing else around. Usually with something like this, and what we had experienced on the honeymoon, I would expect to pay for parking and then pay to see the statue but there was none of that! It was just there, free to all to literally walk up and touch it if you wanted to!
It was quite surreal to be honest, again I expected it to be big but it was huge, i think I also expected it to be busy and it wasn’t – although we were there super early! It’s definitely worth a visit and the board about it was super interesting! We went back to the van and inputted our next destination: Whitby!
A stressful arrival in Whitby
The drive to Whitby was lovely, the sun was shining, the music was on and we were looking forward to some fresh sea air!
We were just about to come off an A road (don’t ask me which one I think we’ve driven on them all!) and we needed some fuel, so I ‘helpfully’ guided Michael to what I believed to be the only nearby shell which was on route.
It wasn’t an easy petrol station to navigate but Michael did it with ease, the problem then was the route had changed because we had gone a slightly different way! We were suddenly in the tight, windy and very hilly town centre of Whitby in a 7metre Marv!
It was a little bit squeaky bum time and we were both getting very stressed out! After hitting the kerb once and stalling it up a ridiculous hill, we decided to go and park in the park and ride car park and then figure it all out from there!
To make matters worse, the road we should have come down, before I diverted us to the only shell garage in the town, we drive past a shell garage which was bigger and had better angles for Motorhomes to fill up there – excellent!
We sat and tried to shake the stress off before we headed to catch a bus into town, the park and ride allowed dogs so that was fab and off we went! It was literally a 10 minute drive down and we got a day travelcard and could have gone back and forth all day if we wished, it really was helpful as the car park was huge too!
A tick, a harbour and a very busy town
When we got into the town we were overwhelmed with how busy it was! Again, nothing like what I was expecting! It was so busy with people that roads had become extra paths, it was a bit crazy how busy it was!
This is when the day started to get back at us again, we found that Bentley had a tick and we had no tick remover on us, only back at Marv! Michael went into a shop and got some tweezers and we spent the first 20 minutes of actually getting to Whitby, trying to make sure we removed a tick from Bentley safely!
Nightmare! Bentley was good as gold, a bit wriggly at times but that’s to be expected, he was given lots of treats as we may have plucked a couple of hairs out whilst removing the tick and he has a cute little bald patch above his eyebrow – I’m sure it will grow back!
We tried again to carry on with our day! We carried along walking past the harbour and towards the pier, the sun was shining and it was a truly beautiful day in Whitby, I was starting to see why so many people were here!
We started walking along the pier, another first for our Bentley bear, but the gaps in the boardwalk were too big for his paws and he kept losing legs down the gaps so we turned back!
Lunch, then a change of plan
We then started to hear our bellies rumbling and thought where should we go for lunch! Whitby is famous for its fish and chips right? The perfect time to decide we actually really fancied a pizza as we have had quite a bit of fish and chips so far – excellent! We could not find a pizza place open for the life of us!
At the same time Bentley was gasping for a drink as he was hot and bothered and clearly still a bit exhausted from yesterday! We went down a side street and found the best alternative to pizza – a roast pork and stuffing bap!
Michael went in and grabbed some bottled water for the dog, whilst he then waited for our food, and I gave the pup a drink! When the food was ready, we couldn’t find a bench to sit on (again just so busy!) so had practically walked back to the bus station by the time we ate lunch!
The food was awesome, I don’t know what side street it was down but I think it was called the greedy pig? Highly recommend, my only suggestion for them would to offer gravy in the bap!
As we were so close to the station, the pup was exhausted and I think we were also a bit hot, bothered and stressed from earlier, we decided to head back to the van and chat about our next stop.
We were due to stay just outside Robin Hood Bay, but with the struggles we faced in Whitby we didn’t feel comfortable navigating the single farmer tracks we would need to, to get to our campsite – and that’s okay!
We had a look online and found a campsite an hour away, which was perfect for us and our plans to come home tomorrow, a day early. So we set off to Boroughbridge, a little village on the outskirts of York!
It’s a proper campsite with all the bells and whistles, so we parked up, went for a wander and then had a shower! We then came back for an early dinner and an early night, ready for our final drive home tomorrow!
Stick around and we shall explain why we chose to come home a day early! ✌🏼