Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Month: August 2019

  • Robin Hood’s Bay – Ye Dolphin

    I quite liked this pub as it had some charm to it and a traditional feel.

    From the Whitby Gazette in 1888 and I imagine that the billiards table had been in the upper room. The lower room is what today houses the pub’s main bar and it was full when we visited.

    I had to quickly check RateBeer as I hadn’t heard of Leeds Pale or Robinson’s Dizzy Blonde, but the ratings were poor and they’re not styles of beer that I usually go for in any event. As a side issue, I’m surprised Robinson’s think they’re being humorous with the name of their beer and it was perhaps inevitable that CAMRA have banned it from the Great British Beer Festival. Robinsons claim that the name refers to the artwork on the front nose cone of aircraft, but they seem to have conveniently forgotten that this isn’t the imagery they’ve had on the pump clips for some time.

    Anyway, Theakston’s Old Peculier is about the best beer that the brewery produce in my rather humble opinion and it’s a reliable option. The beer here was well kept and at the appropriate temperature, with the atmosphere in the pub being welcoming. It must be difficult to give a feeling of a local community pub in such a tourist location, but they seemed to be managing perfectly well.

  • Robin Hood’s Bay – Walk Between Pubs

    Just photos…..

  • Robin Hood’s Bay – Bay Hotel

    The impressive looking Bay Hotel, which dominates the lower part of the town and, perhaps more importantly, is listed in the Good Beer Guide. It’s the only pub in the town which has that honour and we visited the upper bar. Incidentally, the pub has a history of the building on its web-site, something I always appreciate.

    The bar area, with the service being reasonably efficient and always polite. It was also clean and well presented, although a little too hot for my liking. They had put a fan behind the bar to keep the staff cool, which was a good idea, but there didn’t seem to be any provision for customers.

    The beer selection was either Theakston Best Bitter or Theakston Lightfoot, and I went with the former. It was well kept and at the appropriate temperature, but not really to my taste as I struggled to find much depth of flavour in it, although I suppose it would an entirely acceptable session ale.

    The specials board.

    The colour of the fish meant to me that they’d either used a dark ale to make the beer batter or it was overcooked. I would have been surprised at the former as they didn’t have any dark beer, although they could have used Guinness. Anyway, it was the latter, it was overcooked.

    The fish itself was fine and the chips were adequate (I liked the hand cut and home made feel to them, but they were rather greasy), with everything being hot and it was also served promptly. The mushy peas were bloody awful, I have no idea what they’d done with them as there was a layer of water at the base and the taste was off. I might have asked if there was a check back, but there wasn’t, so I didn’t.

    The location is still used as a hotel, and I imagine it’s a really interesting place to stay. There are some decent views of the harbour from the pub windows, and I think also from at least some of the hotel rooms. The prices here for food and drink were towards the higher end of the scale, but it’s a tourist destination and nothing was unreasonable.

  • Robin Hood’s Bay – Walk Down to Bay

    On the Friday night we had a little walk down into the lower part of Robin Hood’s Bay, as we were staying in the upper part. It was a reminder of the 2018 Smuggler’s Trod walk, which goes through the town, and a foreboding sight for the 2019 Smuggler’s Trod walk.

    The reason for this post is just to show the photos I took of the bay. Although the town itself was quite busy, it felt quiet and calm down near to the beach. From here we felt we needed to test a few of the town’s pubs….

  • The Journey Back Home from Yorkshire

    After a lovely weekend in Robin Hood’s Bay and completing the Smuggler’s Trod LDWA challenge event, it was time to drive home to Norfolk. Well, not my driving obviously. Travelling on the Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend seems a much better idea than driving on the Friday, as we fortunately didn’t have any of the delays that we encountered a couple of days ago.

    On another point, it doesn’t take too much effort to work out which McDonald’s meal I had in Swaffham, as opposed to what Clive went for……

  • Smuggler’s Trod Challenge Walk 2019 – Yorkshire Coast LDWA

    On August Bank Holiday in 2018 I thought it’d be a marvellous idea to walk the Yorkshire Coast LDWA’s Smuggler’s Trod challenge event which starts in Robin Hood’s Bay. I thought it’d be another marvellous idea to do the same in 2019, especially as I was able to book a good value B&B which was just three minutes walk from the start of the event.

    There were seven of us from Norfolk & Suffolk group, Jane, Clive, Simon, Brian, Kathleen, Hayley and last and certainly not least, me. I’d note here that this post is just about my experiences, as the others might not want me to broadcast what they got up to. And I am the sole of discretion as everyone in the group knows.

    Unlike some others on the walk, I didn’t get confused by this   🙂    It’s the black token which is dropped off at the, well, drop off bucket, and the tally card which is cut along the route. Being only three minutes from the start of the walk meant that I could walk over to register, then go back to get breakfast at the B&B before starting the event at 08:00.

    The turnout on the walk seemed high and there was a positive atmosphere at the beginning of the event. I was over confident and planning this as some sort of training event for the 100. As usual though, around three hours in I launched an inquiry whose idea it was to go on the walk. We had a debate and thought it must have been one of Peter’s ideas.

    Walking across the moor thing, the start of the walk is also the beginning of the Coast to Coast route. Although I don’t like being reminded of that bloody walk, but that’s a story explained in more than enough detail elsewhere on this blog.

    This is the drop down into the first checkpoint and it’s quite a fun little scramble down. Well, it’s not really a scramble, but I’ll call it that so that I sound braver. It can be quite slippery though and the marshals advised us to take extra care. I was extra careful as I knew that the checkpoint was nearby and I was hungry.

    The first checkpoint where I accidentally ate about three bags of jelly babies and several Yum Yums (doughnuts). This was just after the breakpoint of the short and long routes and although secretly I wanted to go on the short route, I didn’t want Simon to think I wasn’t as good a walker as he is.

    We went a bit wrong in this area last year, but all went well this year.

    I really like this checkpoint on the Moors, especially with the smuggler’s flag flying high. We caught up with Brian and Kathleen here, although Clive had long since sodded off. We had several theories why, but I can’t reveal on a public post why I thought he went off. I had more jelly babies here and I even had some tomatoes, which I hoped wouldn’t counteract with the healthy aforementioned jelly babies.

    I found the walk harder this year than last year, but it was because of the heat. The sun was rather unrelenting and the walk is quite exposed for some stretches on the moors, although there was a reasonable breeze throughout much of the day. Like some other walkers on the route I spoke to, I drank more water than I’ve ever done on a challenge event. One of the marshals said they’d had a few people drop out during the event, and they thought it was the heat which was the cause. It was a tough day out there on the moors for nine hours is all I can say.

    Incidentally, I heard one of the female entrants (not from our group) say that they had ‘chub rub’. I hadn’t heard of that, but it seems that it’s a real thing. I won’t give too many details here….

    And one of the smaller checkpoints where I got more jelly babies. Jane and I had been agreeing about how brave we were at this stage, but I won’t go on about that here.

    This middle section of the walk is beautiful and is much easier when it’s dry, otherwise it can be a little soggy in places. It’s a lovely part of the country to walk through, although I did wonder about how many snakes there might be in the undergrowth. I let Hayley go through first in case there were swarms of snakes as I thought she might know how to deal with the situation if it did arise.

    Winding through the trees, this was a welcome stretch of the route as it was shady. We didn’t know where Clive had gone, so we kept an eye along the route in case he had got lost, which was something which happened to certain members of the group last year. Although we don’t mention that of course.

    This was the checkpoint that I was looking forwards to, the one at the campsite. We were still in a big group at this stage that had sort of formed together, around thirty of us. The volunteers coped marvellously, making a variety of sandwiches quickly and efficiently. I had jelly babies and as many salty crisps and snacks as I could to ensure my salt levels weren’t depleted. I had more tomatoes as I’m reckless like that. Oh, and lots of cheese and jaffa cakes.

    It was shortly after this that one of our party managed to get ordered out of the pub for using their toilets. I won’t go into details though, but I’m sure that the story will be retold…..

    Robin Hood’s Bay comes into view.

    Just before the mast with about six miles to go. So very brave. I’ve still got a slightly sore foot from the Birmingham Canal Canter from two weeks ago, which never really got chance to heal since I did the 21 miles last week on the Suffolk coast, but it will be getting a lot of rest this week. Quite a lot of that rest will be in the pub.

    I did miss Jayne at this point, as she would have been able to do some bandaging and tell me how brave I was. Well, nodded knowingly when I asked if she thought I was being brave. It’s the same thing.

    The mast thing.

    The checkpoint near to the mast and I was pleased to get here as it marks the walk back into Robin Hood’s Bay. There was another entrant struggling at this point who had been affected by the heat. I knew that I wasn’t feeling entirely right as I started to crave melon, which can’t be healthy for me. I had some more jelly babies too though as I assumed I must be low on sugar.

    Walking along the coast towards Robin Hood’s Bay, it’s a lovely view.

    Onto the railway line….

    This is the former railway line which ran from Scarborough to Whitby and we were on this for over two miles as we approached Robin Hood’s Bay.

    I enjoyed this railway line section as it was flat and it was easy on the feet, although I still made Simon talk about politics to help the miles go even quicker. I also made Simon listen to my thoughts about the rail network, which I’m confident he very much enjoyed and I suspect was a real boost to him to help get him to the finishing line.

    That was kind of it for the walk, albeit there’s a very steep (I’m from Norfolk, it’s very steep to me) hill at the end. It wasn’t quite as bad as I remembered, so with one final exertion to climb this mountain I was within sight of the end. It was very lovely indeed to be able to see the hall where the event finished….

    A slightly blurry photo, there was either sweat or tears on the lens, I can’t recall which. I must admit, and I hope no-one from the Yorkshire Coast LDWA group reads this as I don’t like any negativity about the wonderful events run by volunteers, that I was marginally disappointed with the pie. I liked the pie and gravy they supplied last year at the event, and I had rather hoped for that again.

    Anyway, in the absence of my planned main course I did have two desserts and several Yum Yums, so all was well with the world. And there were some jelly babies left as well, so I helped the group eat them.

    On the subject of the Yorkshire Coast LDWA group, they were wonderfully friendly as ever and the event was very professionally organised. It’s so very kind of the marshals to give up their time and they were all happy throughout the event, although I don’t think I’ll be getting Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA to dress up at challenge events (they’d take it too far, I just know….).

    Very well done Julian. Oh and well done to the others. So very brave.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (An Old Woman by Bernardo Strozzi)

    This artwork was painted by Bernardo Strozzi in Genoa in the 1620s and it’s not actually of anyone in particular. Instead it’s a study of old age and so wasn’t funded by some wealthy trader or influential politician from the period. The artist was also called il Cappuccino, likely derived from the Capuchin monks, as the coffee didn’t receive its name until much more recently.

    There doesn’t seem to be much provenance listed for this work, although the Barber Institute purchased it for £2,000 from the Hazlitt Gallery in 1966. I’m not very well placed to be an art critic, since I don’t know anything about art, but I thought that it was quite an eye-catching and powerful portrayal of the individual.

  • Sittingbourne – The Bargeman

    This interesting statue is located along the main street which runs through Sittingbourne, which was once Watling Street. This sculpture was designed by Jill Tweed and was unveiled in 1996 to commemorate the work of the local bargemen. Not particularly clear in this photo is that the bargeman’s dog is standing by his foot and is helping his master.

  • Birmingham – Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (HP Sign)

    One of the HP signs which used to be on the company’s Aston Cross factory in Birmingham. The factory originally opened in 1875 and the iconic HP sauce first went on sale in 1903. This all went marvellously until 2007 when HP was bought out and production was moved to the Netherlands to save money, with the last production line closing on 16 March 2007. The factory was demolished and this sign is one of the few reminders of the site.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (A Portrait of a Boy by Giovanni Bellini)

    This artwork was originally used as part of a lid of an inheritance chest and was painted in Venice in around 1475. I’m not entirely sure what an inheritance chest is (as opposed to any other chest) and an on-line search for the term just finds the description that the gallery have for this artwork. The information provided by the gallery does though add that the chest was constructed to hold the marble bust of Angelo Probi who died in 1474.

    Bellini was a Venetian artist who lived from 1430 until 1516 and I assume that he was quite prolific given how many of his artworks that still exist. The artwork was owned by the Holford family from at least the mid-eighteenth century and it was acquired by the Barber Institute in 1946 for £9,500.