Day 9 Scarborough to Filey

Today's weather was light winds (hooray) and some sunshine, although not that warm.
We had a long drive today as we had to get back to Scarborough which took about an hour and 15 minutes.

'Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers' is a giant steel structure made by Ray Lonsdale an artist fabricator and sculptor and is now on permanent display thanks to the generosity of a local Scarborough resident. The sculpture is based on a retired miner Ray became friends with who turned out to also be one of the first soldiers to relieve the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of World War II.

We started out along the sea front, past freddie Gilroy, and around the headland, past the harbour with all the amusements etc.  and on to the end of the prom - amazingly that was 3 miles!  An amusing event happened in this time in that Steve Y got pooped on by a seagull!!  Lin, (who has everything in her rucksack including the kitchen sink) produced wet wipes to mop it off his hair; and the cap, which was old anyway (most things of Steve's are old!) went in the bin. Steve W and John had every sympathy for him!!

Walter enjoying mixed fish platter.

We left the seafront, and John and Pat who were driver and co-pilot turned back to get the bus and drive to Filey.  We started with the usual coast path routine of up, down, down a bit more, up again etc. etc.   We stopped for elevenses on a bank by some steps which was nice and sheltered, and a man stopped to talk, and advised us (try to imagine a northern accent) 'do you know about diversion - when you get to top of t'road, you has to go down real steep and the along a bit and up again real steep; just keep on t'road and it'll bring you out same place'.   - well we to t'road and sure enough the path went down; well in true hiker spirit, we went down as well, and glad we did as it was quite a pretty woodland part, and the up wasn't that bad - and that's me saying that who doesn't do ups very well at all!!

Steve W on the edge!

So we carried on plodding and eventually met up with John and Pat after about 8 miles.  They told us they had only been walking for about 50 minutes, so we decided to carry on and have lunch at the end.  The end gradually came in sight and a big cheer went up; we had finished the Cleveland Way walk - approximately 110 miles over moor, through forest and on the coast; a fabulous walk.

The finishing post.

We asked someone to take a photo of us all, and he informed us of the Guillemot and puffin colony just around the coast where the rocks changed from brown to white hard chalk - funnily enough the chef from the breakfast café had also mentioned that, and so we agreed that as it was only 1 o'clock we would drive round to see them.  So we had lunch first and drove round to the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs, which actually was probably a bit further than we thought - and it was in the wrong direction!  Anyway, I'm so glad we did because we saw the Guillemot, razorbill, puffin, gannet, and kittiwake (I think).  There were lots of people there with their telescopes and cameras, and they were very friendly pointing out the various birds and letting us look through their telescopes.

Jacqui took this fabulous photo.

After the birds, we started back for Chaple Garth via a tea stop.  We've got curry tonight and a toast of Prosecco, - I think the curry is using up a few things - Pat's team are in charge.

Tim has produced some statistics;
distance walked - 110 miles 50 inland and 60 on the coast.
18,250 feet climbed  (about 4 Ben Nevis')
18,200 feet descent.