Day 14 - Egton Bridge to Robin Hood's Bay - 17 miles

We left The Horseshoe in Egton Bridge at about 8:45am under cloudy skies. We walked through the pretty little village along the road until we turned off onto a private lane belonging to Egton Estates. along the lane we saw lots of grouse off to each side. 

Leaving Egton Bridge

And as we went on we came to the old toll cottage from times gone by with this sign on the side of the house.

Oh, how times have changed

A farmer drove by us on his quad bike with his sheepdog riding up front and in a few minutes we could hear the dog barking and cows mooing as the dog rounded them up and the farmer shouted instructions to the dog…would have liked to stay and watch them work but we've got a long way to go.

Jen as we come out of Egton Estates

We headed into Grosmont, home of the NY Moors Steam Railway, which runs over the moors into Whitby. 

Level crossing 1 Grosmont

Level Crossing 2 Grosmont

Train station Grosmont

It's a beautiful little village  with lovely little shops and galleries. Great to visit in a car but walking out of it is another thing. It's a beast of a hill going on forever. It was pretty much a kilometre with a very steep gradient. We asked a man passing us going down the other way, how much more…he lied and told us we were almost at the top. Ha!

Grosmont Hill 1

Grosmont Hill 2

Grosmont Hill 3

Finally the road levelled out and we were out on the moors again, alone with the sheep and the grouse. This part of the route was very odd taking us out onto a very busy main road and then eventually off into fields again down into Little Beck.

Coast to Coast Sign

Littlebeck was a lovely little place taking us down leafy lanes past interesting houses and thankfully away from cars and noise.

Statue on Littlebeck House

Littlebeck Pantile roof

We made our way through the village and turned off into Littlebeck Woods nature reserve. It's a wonderful wood. 

Add caption

The Hermitage - 1790, carved out by a local schoolmaster. Very cool.

Then, miraculously, we come to a beautiful waterfall and an even more beautiful tearoom at Falling Foss, where we had gingerbread, carrot cake and tea. We met several dogs and their owners and it would have been nice to stay there but there were miles yet to go. We were to busy eating to take any photos….oops. But I did meet the following creatures on the way.

Belted Galloway

I think this sweet old Border Collie is retired from working with sheep and now her job is to greet weary walkers. Sweetie!

Onward and upward, it's always upward with Wainwright and oddly we seem to be heading towards Whitby as the wonderful Abbey s getting closer and close - this is completely the wrong direction. We zigzag back and forth through moor and bog and moor and bog until we finally are heading in the right direction, though through a massive caravan site on the coast. There was a cafe so obviously we had to stop and have an ice cream. Yum.

Our route is somewhat longer

We join The Cleveland Way again and we are on the last leg as we head towards Robin Hood's Bay, the sun comes out and it's so beautiful.

High cliffs between Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay

We stopped for a rest overlooking the water and the sun came out. We took off our boots, aired our feet and changed our socks one last time. It's impossible to describe the feeling of wanting to make this last couple of miles last forever, of course at the same time we wanted to complete what we'd set out to do.

And then before you know it, we're there and coming down into Robin Hood's Bay.We went down to the beach and completed the ritual of dipping our feet in the North Sea as we had in the Irish Sea and tossing the pebbles we'd carried from St. Bee's into the water.

The Bay Hotel - official place to have a drink at the end in Wainwright's Bar - unfortunately this was not to be.

What? No Drinks??

Luckily we were able to get drinks at he place we were staying but all three pubs in the old village couldn't serve alcohol as apparently some RHB Kingpin who'd owned all the pub had recently died and there was some oddness over the transfer of licenses and all the pubs are forced to stop serving drinks!!!

And then that's it…we're done. No more walking. Whatever will we do?

Well of course we went and had dinner and a lovely bottle of champagne sent by our very thoughtful  friend, TJ…a lovely way to end.