An In-Between Vacation Day

After having walked the Rail Trail and me still being rather messed up with hay fever (the Swedish word is hösnuva, hay snuffles or hay cold, but really the English word is more apt because I´m sure I had a temperature - I was pretty knocked out), we decided to skip a trip to Robin Hood´s Bay and a World War II signal station and just drift about town for an afternoon. We entered an amusement arcade and managed to win a little money - not sure how, a boy on a machine next to us tried to explain how it worked, but at least I didn´t comprehend much of it - and not being much bent on gambling (even the plentiful jingling of coins in the drop bucket couldn´t entice us to keep playing) we took our winnings to the fudge shop.

Street art always cheers me up.

We always go looking for cherries. Fresh cherries in Swedish Lapland is so rare as to be non-existent.

Always interesting to see how the idea of Sweden is used to sell stuff.

Of course, I had to take a peak into the local library.

Interesting to see what they write about one´s own town.

In the end, an early night with Kleenex, salt water rinses for eyes and nose,
and some football on television, was just the thing.

North Yorkshire Moor Railway

The train coming into Pickering.

It seems as if we have made a a steam train ride on pretty much every trip to England, and on a few trips to other places as well. It never gets old, it´s an adventure every time. This time, we went from Pickering to Whitby, and the idea was to have a restful day after our walk to Long Nab, when I contracted a terrible hay fever that took a few days to shake - and a boatride that really aired the pollen from my sinuses.

I wanted to stop and take a closer look at two stations. One is Goathland, which is famous - it is where Harry Potter gets off, at Hogsmead station, when he goes to Hogwarts, and it is where the very popular series "Heartbeat" is made. It was also used in "All Creatures Great and Small", which I used to see when I was a kid. The other station I wanted to see, Grosmont, has also appeared in "Heartbeat".

It turned out one train was cancelled, so in order to get my wish we had to walk "The Rail Trail" from Goathland to Grosmont, along a closed down stretch of rail. We weren´t really dressed for it, but a 3½ mile walk on what is more or less a road is not much to dress for. It was a very interesting walk, although it probably didn´t help my allergy any.

Who wouldn´t want to be a train engine driver?

Arriving at Goathland.

The train moves on to Whitby and leaves us behind.

The fences weren´t really holding the sheep in, if they wanted an excursion, too. 

We saw a few old wrecks along the line.

The archetypal English landscape.

On the left is the original tunnel (Grosmont was called Tunnel when it was first opened) that the horse-drawn railway from 1836 went through. When they started with the steam engines, they had to build a bigger tunnel. 

The shop, found on the other side of the tunnel.

A well deserved tea and pie.

Grosmont Station - our train coming in.

Nearly in Whitby.

Whitby is where Captain Cook grew up, and where Dracula´s coffin washed ashore. The afternoon was bleak enough for corpses on the beach.

The seagulls rule in Whitby.