Heartbeat.....

You may remember a couple of weeks ago we had yet another weekend away, well I finally got round to downlowding the photographs so you can suffer enjoy them. The main aim of the trip was to visit a place called Goathland in North Yorkshire where the series "Heartbeat" is filmed and get there via the North York Moors Railway from Pickering. Goathland station was also the setting for Hogsmead station in the first Harry Potter movie!

We went with our friends K&T setting off early on the Saturday morning heading for Scarborough , where we had booked a B&B for the night. We arrived in Scarborough about lunchtime and found a nice little cafe where we had the traditional seaside fish and chips and a pot of tea sitting outside in the sunshine - it was a beautiful day. After lunch we booked in at the B&B which was right on the front with fantastic views of the coastline like this. the B&B was quite nice, very clean and looked as though it had recently been refurbished, though the landlady was a bit stern!

We quickly unpacked - I didn't take the kitchen sink as we were only staying for one night - and set off to Whitby. Being Saturday afternoon Whitby was packed to bursting with people and we couldn't find a place to park for love nor money, so we drove up into the hills to Whitby Abbey and took some photographs of the town and surrounding countryside from the hills. Whitby Abbey was founded in 657 by St Hilda, and is said to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker, author of Dracula.

Then we decided to go to Robin Hood's Bay , what in the 18 th century was reportedly the busiest smuggling community on the Yorkshire coast. Its natural isolation, protected by marshy moorland on three sides, offered a natural aid to this well-organised business which, despite its dangers, must have paid better than fishing. After a cooling drink in the pub overlooking the bay we set off down the very steep hill to the bay itself. I took a few photographs of the cottages and little alleyways on the way down the hill but I think my camera must have been playing up because they didn't register! You can see the view of the bay from the top of the hill though in the next slide show.

We arrived back in Scarborough with enough time to have a swift drink in the pub down the road from the B&B before we went back to freshen up, get changed and go out for a meal. We found a very popular Indian Restaurant where we enjoyed a very tasty curry before turning in for the night.

The next morning we enjoyed a cooked breakfast before packing up and setting off to Pickering where we boarded the train on the North York Moors Railway , the longest steam railway in England, to Goathland. The village is better known as Aidensfield in the 1960's period TV series Heartbeat giving the area the name of Heartbeat Country. It's a very popular tourist destination and we joined the throngs taking pictures of the Aidensfield Arms, Scripps Garage, Aidensfield Stores, the various vehicles used in the filming of Heartbeat and the station which, as I said earlier, was Hogsmead Station in the first Harry Potter film.

We headed back to the station and boarded the train back to Pickering where we found a lovely pub and had some lunch. We'd been really lucky with the weather, it was sunny and hot on Saturday and dry and warm on Sunday, that was until we got about 50 yards from the car to set off home and it started raining, we just managed to get in the car before the heavens opened and it rained most of the journey home - how lucky is that? We're now planning our next trip - hopefully New Year in Spain, but it depends on the price of the flights, wish us luck.