Whitby, England 2023

Date: 31st May 2023

Travelled: 73 kms from Pickering to Guisborough   

Visited:  Whitby  

Stayed: Guisborough parking. free, N54.53400, W01.05160  

Budget: 9 days @ €105 per day

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Another cold morning in Pickering. We do the Hymer’s usual services and ready for the road once again. But as the Lidl is just across the road we pop in and pick up a few essentials.

It’s a relatively short 20 miles over to Whitby and we get a little drizzle on our way, the first for this year. Whitby lies at the mouth of the River Esk and ancient fishing and ship building port.

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We looked at the overnight options and there a couple of caravan parks that wanted £50 a night, we didn’t find that reasonable. There is very little parking close to town especially for a motorhome so we opted for the P+R, thinking we’ll worry about overnight parking later.

At the P+R parking is free, an all day bus pass is only £2.60 pp.

Having watched the bus driver negotiate the narrow streets to the station, we knew the P+R was the correct choice.

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Whitby has been on our bucket list for years. I’m a Captain Cook fan and contrary to the current WOKE thinking we believe him to be the great navigator and seaman of his time. Anyway whilst Cook was not born in Whitby he lived here for many years serving his apprenticeship and learning his trade here, before joining the Royal Navy.

Having visited the Cook Museum in Cooktown (named after you know who) in Queensland in 2021, is seems fitting to visit the James Cook Museum here in Whitby.

Whitby dates back to 656 AD but these days its an eclectic mixture of English seaside resort with it’s tat shops, amusement halls and carnies, it’s also home to an extensive fishing fleet, has a tenuous link to Dracula as Bram Stoker lived here when he wrote the book. I let the photos tell the story of our day in Whitby.

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Our guide book recommends the Magpie Cafe (pictured above) for lunch and co-incidentally Rick Stein our travelling companion tells us it’s the best fish and chip restaurant in England. By the time we get back to the Magpie for lunch there’s a queue along the footpath. We decide to give the queue 15 minutes and see how we go.

15 minutes later we are at the head of the queue and placing our order a few minutes later. The Magpie is all fresh seafood nothing from frozen, according to the blurb. Obviously we both do variations of fish and chips although Pam goes for the grilled fish and steamed potatoes for some reason that escapes me.

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After lunch we set off across the swing bridge and start the hundreds of steps up the hill to the Abbey. Then wander the graveyard of St Mary’s and its numerous headstones dating back in the 1700s. The church is a thousand years old and not like any other we have come across travelling through England.

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From the church we wander down as half of England seems to be struggling up the hill. Our last stop is the Cook Memorial Museum and pay the entry fee of £8 pp. The museum focuses as much on his life as an indentured apprentice as his navigational achievements of later life. It’s an interesting 45 minutes but not in the same league as the museum in Cooktown.

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So that was our day in Whitby, we wander back across the swing bridge to the P+R stop and make our way back to the Hymer. A local suggested a stop in Sandsend but on arrival we found it was roadside parking and continued on to Guisborough and a free park in the centre of town.

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Michael + Pam