York to Tyne & Wear - Newcastle (7 May)

Time to leave beautiful York and head for Newcastle, which is essentially a rest point on our way into Scotland - to break up our drive and keep the 'sitting in a car' shorter!!

Bit excited though, as our first stop is a little village called Aidensfield - where Heartbeat and more importantly (in my humble opinion) Hogsmeade Station from the first couple of Harry Potter films were shot. Here's a bit of nostalgia for you:

Scripps Garage - Heartbeat
Post Office - Heartbeat

Rhonda at Hogsmeade station

Hogsmeade Station in 1st 2 movies

As we drove out of Aidensfield and onto the Yorkshire Moors we had some 'sheep' visitors as  they decided to walk across the road and beautiful views. The cloud cover rolled in for about 10 mins and covered everything:



Our next stop was Whitby as it has a full scale replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour as well as Whitby Abbey - which was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula:

Endeavour replica

Captain Cooks table

Endeavour Wheel (obviously!!)

Whitby Abbey - my photo


Having grabbed a lunch of fish n chips on the Endeavour we walk around town a bit before heading off to our airbnb in Newcastle. Great day, weather was warm - about 21 and a far bit of driving. Penelope - our navigational aide - did a fantastic job telling me when to turn and also when to u-turn cos I missed a turn. Zero window wipers today in lieu of indicators - I'm all over this Volvo. Even opened up the sky roof and let some fresh air in!!

Tomorrow we are visiting 3 castles on our way to Kelso Scotland.

It's just struck me this time in 3 weeks will be my first day back at work 💃.

Life is good!

Til next time....... toodle pippies

PS - this is the water you cross before arriving at Hogsmeade Station:


PPS - I found this both interesting and clever. I discovered it on the deck. What is says is as follows:

"Sailors urine was collected in a half-barrel and their clothes were dipped in it to kill lice. The clothes were rinsed clean in saltwater after! If a member of the general crew needed a poo, they would carefully shuffle out on a plank like this, called a 'seat of ease' and position themselves over the hold before going about their business" Ingenious!! 


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