Whitby to Sandsend

 Wednesday 9th July.                       Whitby to Sandsend 

Today’s adventure would take on a new meaning of punctuality, we were on time and so was our train heading to the East Coast resort of Scarborough. All was going smoothly until we, that’s John, Derek, Dave, Brian, Glenn and Mark exited the station at the town and headed towards a nearby bus stop, the time was a few minutes after 10am. They were hoping to catch the 10:20 bus heading for Whitby, a rather extensive queue was already awaiting the arrival of the X94, the previous 2 had not turned up for some apparent reason. Nevertheless we took our places in the queue and hopefully we may get seated.

Quite a few minutes later than scheduled the bus along with us on board began to move away from it’s stand, with a few extra passengers taking this journey through the streets of Scarborough and further afield. We were heading towards Whitby calling at Robin Hoods Bay on our way . This would take about an hour or so depending upon the traffic. As the X94 took us along the winding roads we were given magnificent views of the splendid landscape in this region of North East Yorkshire, fantastic sights.

Eventually the bus pulled into it’s appropriate spot in Whitby, the time now was 11:45, some 10 minutes later we were inside Greggs and purchasing a bite to eat along with a drink ,our alternate decision to take a further bus journey onto Sandsend was abandoned due to our needs for sustenance, so with sandwiches to hand it was off to the beach, not before a swooping seagull had taken Dirk’s pasty out of his grasp.

Soon we made the beach and began our trek to the distant vista of Sandsend, fortunately the midday tide was still far out enabling us to progress slowly along the shoreline, the occasional rest was inevitably and a few photo opportunities taken along our way.

At this moment in time the weather was perfect, not too hot and a gentle sea breeze made conditions fine, but as the afternoon wore on the sun broke through and brought with it a rise in temperature, thankfully we had reached the picturesque setting of Sandsend and now a time to rest awhile and collect our thoughts.

We eventually climbed up the sea defence structure and made our way to a nearby bus stop. Once there we were greeted with an outcry that yet again the last 2 scheduled buses had not turned up, we were expecting to take the 1:50 back to Whitby, by 2:20 nothing had shown up so the seeds of doubt came to our forefront, what action do we take, a decision to maybe call for a taxi was suggested and true to form our leader step forward and made the call. Some 15 minutes later we were all outside Trenches ordering fish and chips before joining the bus stop queue back in Whitby.

 

The sun was now at its hottest and unfortunately our place in this queue didn’t provide us with any shade at all, thankfully this bus did arrive and we began to board slowly, choosing the wrong side of the bus to sit meaning we had to endure yet more streaming sunshine, phew it became oppressive at times.

The bus ride back to Scarborough seemed to go on and on with the weather conditions not helping, thankfully we reached the town and eventually the railway station, time now for a well deserved cuppa and a chance to relax a little, 30 minutes before our train is due to leave and head back to Leeds, from here we will take our respective journeys home.

Cheers Everyone for taking on this Adventure.

Upon reflection our adventure today was seriously effect by the failure of the bus company to deliver a proper schedule.