From Cleethorpes to Donna Nook

"Eyyyy!"

Most of the time, our walks take us to the Moors. But the other week I went to Grimsby for the first time in my life. Well, actually we went to Cleethorpes, which for some reason is not Grimsby though I got the feeling that the two merged into one another very smoothly. Why choose the Humber’s south bank over the North Yorkshire hills?

"Oh, hello!"

Because every November and December approximately 3,000 grey seals return from the open sea to Lincolnshire’s shore at Donna Nook to give birth to their pups. It wasn’t something to be missed and since there is a footpath from Cleethorpes all the way to Donna Nook, we decided to combine watching the seals with a 21 mile hike.

The footpath runs all the way along the shore. Once you leave Cleethorpes behind, you get a really nice view of one of the two Humber forts. Haile Sand is the fort closer to Lincolnshire and during extremely low tides, some people have walked over to it. Its larger sister (Bull Sand Fort) can be found just off Spurn Point on the Yorkshire-side of the Humber. Both forts were built between 1915 and 1919. During World War II, they were a popular target for German planes because the British spun a net between them to prevent German submarines from entering the Humber. The military abandoned the forts in the mid-fifties. So naturally, John would like to live in it.

Seals. Seals everywhere!

All along the walking path you come across pillboxes, which were built in the 1940s as part of the British WWII anti-invasion preparations. Now they made a nice coffee table for our lunch breaks. The walk itself is very flat and it being along the coast also rather windy. But it is easy terrain to walk on and only very little walking has to be done on actual sand.


At last we made it to the seals! Wardens had put up fences to protect seals and visitors alike. But the seals come right up to the fence, which is great for taking photos, and they seem absolutely unfazed by the many humans exclaiming “Awwwww!”, and “Is that one dead?”. We went on a weekend and it was pretty busy so if you can you should go during the week. Grey seals might well be my favourite hilarious animal. Even when threatening each other, they just look too funny flopping around howling and snorting at each other. That being said, there is a lot of mass to them and I would not want to get on the bad side of one... if I somehow lost my ability to walk with haste. Although the pups look cuddly and cute with their big beady eyes, you should not touch them. Not only can seals bite (they are Britain’s largest living carnivore) but a pup that smells of human or dog might get rejected by its mother.

We only spent about 20 minutes with them because we still had a ten mile walk back to Cleethorpes ahead of us but I want to go back next year and stay for a few days.

City of Hullture

By the Humber

You might have heard that Hull has put forward a bid to become City of Culture 2017. Today, team Hull gives its final presentation to the committee of judges in Derry to convince them to crown Hull the winner over the competitors Swansea Bay, Dundee and Leicester. It’s pretty big news all over the local papers and on my Facebook feed. The bid has created quite a buzz in the area. If Hull wins, the council has promised £15m worth of cultural events and for one year Hull would be in the media in a positive light and not just as the flagship of various lists about what is wrong with Britain. A pretty good opportunity and everyone is getting really excited.

Hull's Landmark: The Deep

Now, when a city like Hull applies to become City of Culture, the snobs and cynics start crawling out of their caves. Hull for City of Culture? Maybe they should change the title 'City of Culture' to 'Best Poor City in the UK'. You don't see Oxford or Cambridge wanting it! It’s true, Hull isn't Oxford but it isn't that hell hole some people want you to believe it is either. I don’t think it is about who has the oldest buildings and the fanciest museums (nothing against either, I love Oxford and London). I like to think of City of Culture 2017 as an award that honours the willingness to change for the better. I’d love to see Hull win and find the idea behind it laudable. To get a bit of a feel for it you should check out the video made to support Hull’s City of Culture bid.

Museums Quarter in Old Town

Okay, the video is a little bit cheesy but Hull has been making an effort to change its reputation for the better. It’d be great if for once its media coverage would focus on its achievements and not just its flaws. We have lots of nice museums, a fantastic art gallery, some of the nicest pubs I've ever been to, several theatres, one river and one estuary, a beautiful red-brick uni, the deepest aquarium in Europe, a little marina, tons of independent shops, various festivals throughout the year, many cosy cafes, a lively music scene, numerous parks, loads of history to explore and an admirable, ever-driving urge to improve.

There is one bit in the video that stuck with me: Hull's “end of the line sense of freedom”. In Hull, trains don't woosh through the station. They have to stop and turn around to continue their journey. When I first moved here, Hull's literal end-of-the-line location was suffocating to me. But I’ve come to appreciate that sense of arrival you get when the Humber Bridge comes into view shortly before your train pulls into the station. Hull is my basecamp now and I have my fingers crossed for it.

The winner will be announced 20th November!

Chasing an Elusive Horse at Sutton Bank

Sutton Bank is a 300 metre high hill near Thirsk in North Yorkshire. A quick Google search will tell you that a lot of people consider the view from its top to be one of the finest in England. Reason enough to go for a hike in the area but we had another quest. John had promised me a horse carved into the side of the hill, which we would pass at the end of the walk: Kilburn White Horse. Promises of giant ponies I can take photos of are a good motivation to get me climbing up and down hills.

We started at the Sutton Bank National Park Visitor Centre, which is on top of the hill, and then headed north along the bank. It was still early in the morning and the sun hadn’t had a chance to warm up the air yet. Not that I think it would have mattered much because I don’t believe it is ever warm up there as the wind is soaring over the bank like there is no tomorrow. We were in luck that the wind blew from the west because that meant it pushed us further onto the plateau rather than off the rather steep cliff to our left. Some sort of hat was in order! But it was definitely worth it, the view over green and orange hills and Gormire Lake was spectacular.

As soon as you go down the hill and wander into the villages at the foot of Sutton Bank the wind stops and for a November day, it was actually quite warm. The downside to being in a valley in late autumn is the wetness. Every field we had to cross was waterlogged. This is not a place you want to be in while wearing puny shoes. I recently invested in some new hiking boots after my old ones started having the waterproof properties of a desert sandal. This walk certainly put the new boots to the test. Naturally, you’ll try and find the dryest way to cross a puddle but if the puddle is an entire field it can get a bit tricky. At one point, we clambered along the very edge of a field by a farm, clinging onto a barbed wire fence for dear life so that we might not fall into the knee-deep mud. It wasn’t made any easier by having spectators. Some interested cows stopped their peaceful grazing to stare at us probably wondering what those crazy humans were doing. My feet were fully submerged at times but there just was no other way across. I was rather proud of them afterwards. Though many muddy kilos heavier than before, my feet stayed dry and snug. That’ll do, boots. That’ll do.

Around midday, the sky started filling up with gliders as the Yorkshire Gliding Club is at the top of Sutton Bank. Gliders are pulled up into the sky either by tractor or by plane for higher altitude. Conditions must have been amazing for gliding on that day because there were at least ten gliders in the air at any time we looked up. When you stood on a hill, the gliders were so close that you could see every detail before they veered to the valley again. Apparently, Amy Johnson was one of the most famous members! If you ever visit Hull, odds are that you will come across all the names Hull is most proud to be associated with: William Wilberforce (slavery abolitionist), Mick Ronson (David Bowie’s guitarist, born in Hull), Philip Larkin (poet) and Amy Johnson. Johnson was an aviation pioneer and the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia. She died in a flying accident over the Thames estuary at the age of 37 in 1941 and there is still some ambiguity surrounding her death as the purpose of her final flight is a government secret. WW2 was on after all... All rather mysterious but I digress!

We were walking along fields full of livestock, cows, sheep, horses until we came to a field full of... sheep-cows? From a distance they looked like your bog-standard sheep but as you got closer their faces looked like those of young cows, and they were somehow broader than your average sheep. As we approached them, the creatures started getting uneasy, got up and all limped off. One of them exposed a strange growth on its side as it waddled up the hill. All I could think about was them being a failed attempt at crossing cows and sheep to get the best of both worlds like the potato-tomato plant that is tomato at the top and potato at the bottom - the TomTato. I don’t know what government experiment had gone wrong in this field but something wasn’t right.

I felt quite sorry for them and the feeling that something was wrong got stronger when I saw the flawless sheep one field over. What they had in looks they lacked in manners, though. One walked after us until I stopped to take a photo of it. As I was about to push the button to capture this photogenic being it started relieving itselfs while staring right at the camera with a look of ”Hmm… yeah, you like what you see?” and then walked off to join the popular crowd again. So maybe being a genetic mutant sheep and having nice genetic mutant sheep friends does have its perks. But if somebody knows if cow-head sheep are a certain breed or if it’s a common condition among sheep then please let me know and put my mind at ease!

After a lot of field walking we entered some woods and walked around Gormire Lake, which we could see from the top of Sutton Bank earlier. With the cliffs of Sutton Bank in the background, it felt like we were somewhere in North America and no longer in Yorkshire. It was beautiful and we came across some interesting trees and decided to rest on a birch to have some coffee and gather strength before the final push. The last bit of the walk would include climbing back up Sutton Bank but not before walking through the village with the longest place name in England (Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe) and past the White Horse of Kilburn, which had managed to stay rather elusive thus far.

Kilburn horse and a fleeing John

Especially since the Kilburn White Horse is the largest (and most northern) hill figure in England, I expected to see it from miles away. Well, how right I’d be. Carved into the side of Sutton Bank in 1857, it gets its distinctive white colour from limestone chips that it is covered with. As we approached the horse’s location on the map a huge frown started to form on my forehead. We found the horse alright. From the car park at the bottom of the hill you could see its behind and something that could be its legs if you used your imagination. From the top of the hill you could see its back. I never got to see the horse’s front legs or its head for that matter! It must have looked pretty cool from a glider or from a far away hill but we were too close to it, so it just looked like a patch of gravel. It was not all bad though as my resentment fuelled me until we got back up to the top of the hill and back to the car.

A Trip to German-Occupied France

Last weekend, 1940s enthusiasts gathered in the North Yorkshire town of Pickering to rekindle the spirit of a decade long past. For three days the streets were filled with WW2 soldiers, men in hats and suits, and women with elaborate hair styles. Fur coats were all the rage among the ladies and if you didn’t have one you just made up for it by flinging a lifeless fox over your shoulder. It was amazing to see to what great lengths people went to make it a real experience. I felt like we stood out a little bit in our everyday clothes.

We went to Pickering on Sunday and for the first half of the day, the weather couldn’t have been worse. It was raining and didn’t look like it’d stop any time soon. Hiding in cafés was a great solution but after four coffees we had to look for equally dry alternatives. We found them in the form of covered markets which sold 1940s clothing, WW2 medals and bags as well as modern army surplus gear. I’m a little bit funny about putting on these “vintage” clothes (they smell weird), so no flingy shoulder foxes for me!

Most of the time we were surrounded by well dressed, happy families and British soldiers with swing music playing in the background. It seemed like everyone was having a blast and I found the ease of mind the British approach the 1940s with rather refreshing. When we hopped on the steam train from Pickering to the close-by village Levisham, this refreshing approach was taken to a whole new level.

For the weekend, Levisham had been turned into the German-occupied French village Le Visham. Consequently, there were several men in full-on Nazi uniforms. Just as we stepped off the train, one of them arrested a “Frenchman”. Near the station, the “Germans” had put up their camp and a large flag featuring a swastika was gently moving in the wind. I stood and stared with huge eyes for quite a while. In Germany, the post-war criminal code makes the public showing of swastikas and other symbols used by the Nazis such as the SS-bolts illegal, unless it is for scholarly reasons. Swastika flags and people dressed as Nazi officers were a tiny bit of a shock to my German system...

A bunch of soldiers in full gear, carrying guns is a pretty daunting sight. One of the dressed-up German officers was even demonstrating weapons used by the Nazis. I expect a weapon to be loud but it feels a little different when one is being fired right next to you. My ears were ringing a bit when we had a glass of red wine in a nearby tent… hey, when in France!

The British seem to love a little bit of wartime nostalgia and fancy dress. I never thought Germans were allowed to feel nostalgic about the 1940s for obvious reasons... Maybe I will go back next year again and try to blend in a little better.

On that note, I have to go cry my heart out watching the next episode of Band of Brothers...

Learning English with Tea and Biscuits

Victorious Fig Roll

I used to be so excited about the sound of the English language as a kid. I’d make up my own pretend-English before school forced the real thing on me. 20 years later and I’m alright at it but there’s always more to learn. Three months ago I started keeping track of the slightly bizarre expressions I come across living in Yorkshire. I think I’m ready now to add another four to the list.

namby-pamby
I learnt this melodic expression while discussing what properties are most important in our biscuits.
It means:
1. lacking in character or substance
2. weak, indecisive
Apparently fig rolls are proper biscuits and not of the namby-pamby kind like rich teas. I wish more of the world was explained with the help of biscuits. And what I wouldn’t give for some namby-pamby biscuits to go with my tea right now…

Do you want out? 
I get asked this at work a lot when somebody is about to go to Sainsburys: “Anyone want out?” When I heard it the first time, images of careless world exploration and escaping the mind numbing routine that is full-time employment crossed my mind. Unfortunately, the best thing you’ll get out of this offer is a chocolate bar (maybe even a Crunchie?) or biscuits to dunk in your tea. It merely translates as: “Do you want me to bring you anything from the shop?”

Nah, you’re alright.
The strange answer you get when you offer to do something for someone and they decline.
“Do you want another cup of tea?” - "Nah, you’re alright."
It still doesn’t make much sense to me why you would put it like that. To me it sounds a lot like: “I will only drink the tea of my enemies!"

Dinner/Tea/Lunch
A foreigner will learn that lunch is the meal you have around noon, dinner is what you eat in the evening and tea time is somewhere around 4pm... right? Welcome to the English Guess the Mealtime-phenomenon where dinner can sometimes be lunch however, lunch will always be lunch but tea can mean dinner as well as 4pm tea time. So “What are you doing for dinner?” could also mean “What are you having for lunch?” and “What’s for tea?” can mean “What are we having for dinner?” Okay then...

A Pint, a Fire and a Ghost

Well, it’s only September but I’m ready to swap a pint in a sunny beer garden for a glass of nose-clearingly strong spirit by a crackling fireplace. I go to pubs a lot less than I used to so when I do go, I want it to be a nice one. A great bad weather pub conveniently close to my flat is Ye Olde Black Boy in Hull’s Old Town. It’s one of my favourites because it’s small and cosy yet full of life. You can tell that it’s very old, the drink selection is awesome and on cold days there’s still a real fire warming up the smoking room (don’t let the name fool you - the English were thankfully very thorough with their implementation of the smoking ban).

The Smoking Room

You enter the pub through an inconspicuous looking, dark door and find yourself in a short stone corridor. The first door on your right takes you to the small front/smoking room and to the pool table upstairs. The door at the end of the corridor leads to a bigger and often slightly livelier back room. Smoking room and back room are both linked by the fixed pivotal point: the bar. All rooms are darkly panelled and posters and old newspaper articles hang on the rather thick walls (I never have a decent phone signal in these old pubs). You choose between sitting on wooden leather-cushioned benches or footstools. Along the top of the wall a black shelf runs around the perimeter of the room. On it stand a large variety of bottles and when it gets darker outside fairy lights bathe the whole scene in a warm light.

There have been houses in the Black Boy’s location as early as the 14th century but it wasn’t until the 1720s when William Smith purchased the building that its transformation into a public house started being documented. Smith originally opened it as a pipe shop. At one point, the Black Boy was a brothel and it took until the 1930s for it to become a pub as we know it today. The origin of the name Ye Olde Black Boy is not entirely clear. Some claim that it refers to the look of a chimney sweep, others say it was named after a Moroccan boy who worked there in the 1730s, when the building was a coffee shop. Some even claim the name was inspired by King Charles II (1630-1685), who had a rather swarthy complexion and was also known as the black boy king of England.

Slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833) and poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) were both known to regularly frequent the premises. But the pub also has a reputation for getting slightly less worldly visitors. It is said to be haunted with bottles inexplicably flying off shelves and apparitional hands reaching out through the wall panels.

I ain't afraid of no ghost! And looking out now into the cold, windy greyness taking my chances with a ghost to sit by a crackling fire over a warm glass of mulled cider sounds like a risk worth taking.

Iron, Grouse and Cream Tea at Rosedale Abbey

The North York Moors National Park is full of villages that look much too quaint to be true. Up there I found the Yorkshire I first encountered on TV as a kid when my parents and I were watching All Creatures Great and Small (in German: Der Doktor und das liebe Vieh). Although the series was set in the Yorkshire Dales it is close enough for me. The North York Moors are surprisingly easy to get to from Hull with the Moorsbus running every Sunday from March until the end of October. You can get virtually anywhere in North Yorkshire with a day ticket for £9. So last weekend we hopped onto the M14 bus to Rosedale Abbey. A bit of a cold trip as the windows were open and a rather opinionated argument ensued whenever someone tried to close them. But after a smooth bus change in Pickering and a second rather speedy bus journey, we were at our desired destination.

And so began our lovely eight mile circular walkabout around Rosedale. The sky was clear, the sun was shining and a refreshing September breeze unmistakably announced the end of summer. You start off in a green valley and head north along the rather red stream Northdale Beck. It gets its colour from the high concentration of iron in the area. Another thing that there seems to be an abundance of is grouse. At least I think they are grouse. They are just terrible at hiding and much too tame for their own good. There were a few dismembered wings scattered along the trail. I did manage to get one to pose for me though so I will forgive them for randomly jumping out of the bushes nearly giving me mini heart attacks.

Calcining Kilns

I was a little safer from the grouse when we left the high grass and entered a dark pine forest. I was deep in thought about lunch when John darted off and headed straight towards a bed of wood sorrell and started plucking. Wood sorrel is an awesome little snack to find along the way. It tastes a bit like a sour apple. When we got out of the forest it was time for elevenses: salami and a fancy sweet chilli cheese. I can be funny about cheese because I just can't tell if it is dead or alive. Plus it smells weird. It had gotten a bit soft in the sun too so that didn't help. Once wrapped in a slice of salami it was alright, though.

We waded through a densely populated field of sheep before crossing a poultry ridden farm: ducks, chicken and geese en masse. When I went through my photos later that night it seemed like 90% of them were of livestock. Grazing sheep were scattered all across the hills near the ruins of the Rosedale iron mines by Hollins farm. There isn’t much left of the railway tracks and the mining community that started flourishing in the area in the 1850s. The mines were given up in 1929 but a few kilns and mine shaft entries still stand strong as a reminder of the past.

We had now walked approximately four miles and thus had hit the half-way point. This clearly meant that pie had to happen so we went to the Farmhouse Fodder Tea Garden at Dale Head Farm. A small sign at the top of the hill directed us down to the valley where you can take your tea from “11-5 every day... but closed Monday except bank holidays and Tuesdays” and basically whenever nobody is around it is closed too. With our fingers crossed we made the descend in the hope of sugary goodness.

We were in luck and it was open and it was hands down one of the loveliest cream tea experiences I’ve had. We sat in the garden on a stone bench covered with wood in our own little nook surrounded by flowers. Bumble bees and butterflies were whizzing all around us. Our brains had been in scone-mode all morning and I ordered the cream tea while John changed his mind at the last second and had a Ginger Yorkshire Moggy and coffee. Both cakes were homemade and tasted divine. My scone was served with a slice of orange and strawberry and it was almost too perfect when a butterfly (possibly a Painted Lady) landed on the orange. As we were basking in the sun, eating tasty treats and drinking hot drinks a sports aeroplane flew through the valley. It was so close you could see every detail! At this point I was ready to move there and bake delicious cakes for a living.  

But alas it was time to head back towards Rosedale along more fields, a lot of cows and streams that looked like we could have been in the jungle. The tea gardens popularity showed itself once more when a group of hikers walked past us and asked if Farmhouse Fodder was open. The group had tried to phone the owner but the signal in the valley isn’t very good. I don’t think we could have made them any happier when we confirmed that it was indeed open. Their stride became a little bit bouncier and their smiles got a little bit bigger. There was less of a climb on the way back so the second half of the walk seemed to pass much quicker and we were back in Rosedale quite early. We didn’t have to wait long at all for a Moorsbus to take us back to Pickering. The bus ride back was a lot more relaxed as the driver took a longer route and he was in less of a rush than the one who brought us to Rosedale that morning. Once we were back in Pickering we waited in a cosy pub over a pint of Stowford Press until the Moorsbus took us back to Hull.

Unfortunately, due to funding cuts it looks like the Moorsbus service won’t be available in 2014 anymore, which would be a huge shame. Trips to North Yorkshire using public transport will become a lot more complicated and expensive.

Reconnoitring the Leeds Liverpool Canal

Last Sunday we made a first attempt at exploring the Leeds Liverpool Canal and its narrowboats on foot starting in Leeds city centre and heading towards Shipley. That's about as elaborate as our plan was. The lovely area around the canal would have been reason enough to go but I had a second agenda. I wanted to look at some narrowboats as living on one is something I’d love to try for several reasons:

1. To see how tidy I can be when limited space forces me to be.
2. To learn what possessions I really need in everyday life.
3. To be more on top of the resources I use to sustain myself. 
4. To stop rushing through life and just take my time. 
5. To get a sun-basking narrowboat dog.

We got into Leeds station at 11am and after a tasty Full English and a strong coffee at Aire Bar we headed to Clarence Dock near the Royal Armouries to take a look at some narrowboats and we began judging. I like the cosy gypsy style boats in purple or green with a herb garden and flowers creatively attached. Living space-savingly could be a challenge for me as I seem to have a knack for making a mess yet I can’t stand my own flat being untidy. I will spend two minutes turning my room upside down to find that one top I really want to wear only to then tidy up after myself for another two hours. I'm not proud.

We followed the river Aire until we hit the Leeds Liverpool canal near the station. It was my favourite walking weather: windy, fresh, cloudy but dry. I like the clash of architecture you find while you’re still in the heart of Leeds: abandoned industrial ruins followed by trendy bars before nature takes over a little more but in the distance modern high-rise office towers keep watch over everything.

I read up a bit on what the canal is all about so here is a super quick summary. While today the canal is mostly used for leisure purposes it was originally intended to move goods between Leeds, Bradford, Skipton and Liverpool. Construction on the canal started in the second half of the 18th century and it took 46 years to complete it. It was mostly a lack of funding that made the construction draw out so much. It also ended up costing five times more than originally planned. I couldn't help but be reminded of Hull's footbridge. But 127 miles of canal and 91 locks later, it was done! A lot of the locks appear in groups of two or three to create stairs. The most fun to get through with a boat should be the five rise lock staircase at Bingley.

We only made it to somewhere near Rodley this time before taking a bus back to Leeds. My excuses: I was wearing skate shoes, we set off quite late and we had a limited supply of water with us so we decided to take it easy. After all, this whole trip was supposed to be a recon mission to see how well suited the area is for a few days of walking. I’m rather excited about it as there are loads of blackberries to forage and woods to explore. This definitely looks like something worth pursuing.

Great Day Out at Spurn Point

Left: North Sea; Right: Humber

The Humber river does not only separate Hull from Lincolnshire but its north bank also marks the beginning of what historical linguists call northern English. I have grown quite fond of the estuary in all its brown glory and was intrigued to see what it looks like when it finally meets the North Sea at Spurn Point. Spurn Point is a 3.5 mile long sand and shingle island. It is only 46 metres wide in some places and protrudes out into the water like a hook. It even featured in the BBC show Seven Natural Wonders as Yorkshire’s coastal gem.

Withernsea beach

It’s possible to get to Spurn Point from Hull without too much trouble. We took the 75 bus to Withernsea. There we had 50 minutes to kill before our connecting bus arrived so we had a wander about the place. It’s your typical bucket-and-spade seaside town with tacky arcades (I never understood why the English are so fond of them) and myriads of places where you can get a mediocre coffee and ice cream on the go. But it feels strangely out of the way, which I didn’t like. I’d rather go to Hornsea for my bucket-and-spade beach feel. Luckily, the 73 bus to Easington arrived on time and we hopped on. It turned out that we could have left the 75 at a village called Patrington already and catch the 73 from there thus cutting time, money and Withernsea off our journey but at least we know for next time.

The bus dropped us off right next to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust building. From there we set off to walk the entire perimeter of Spurn Point starting with the stretch of beach on the North Sea side. The weather was terrific and I searched the beach for pretty shells and little stones. The less pretty ones I threw at John :) I was rather chuffed with my findings but I wasn't lucky enough to find a fossil, which is a shame as they are apparently quite common among the pebbles.

Every once in a while we ran up the dunes to see what the view was like on the river side. The tide only just began to rise so the Humber’s mud flats were still very visible. They might be rich in nutrients making a diverse wildlife possible but they are not all that aesthetically pleasing so back to the North Sea side we went. 3.5 miles can really start to drag when you’re walking on sand and once we made it to the tip of Spurn Point it was definitely time for a break. It is pretty windy there so our lunch was mixed with a gnashing quantity of sand as we were watching large ships cross the Humber-North Sea threshold. Gnash, gnash...

Coffee definitely required a less windy spot so we climbed up the sand dunes and found shelter in an old, overgrown gun battery used during WW1 and 2 to keep the Germans out, heh. Clearly it didn’t work! My celebratory invasion coffee tasted amazing, I admired my new stones and just chilled in the sun. It was pure bliss. But we had a bus to catch and still a few miles to walk so on we went to the Spurn Point lighthouses on the southern river side.

It’s pretty amazing to think that at least 8 lighthouses have disappeared here since the 15th century. The still intact one was built in the late 19th century but you can see that it was decommissioned 30 years ago as the paint is starting to peel off and the top is getting a little rusty. There are plans to turn it into a heritage centre but I’m not convinced. I really enjoyed the decay-charm you get from the lighthouse and the overgrown battery ruins. It'd almost be a shame to tidy it all up.

Shortly before we were back at the bus stop, we were lucky enough to get a glimpse of why Spurn Point is so popular with bird watchers as we witnessed a large bird gathering over the Humber. It's paradise for anyone who has binoculars with over 200 different bird species visiting throughout the year. We haven’t fixed the whole lack-of-binocular problem yet but I think it has definitely become more of a priority. The next paycheck will have to go on gear upgrades and not on adding to my ambitious collection of clothing. It was getting quite late and we had to rush to catch our bus back to Withernsea where we were in medical need of a large ice cream with flake by the beach. Overall a very lovely day and it’d be very good to have a bit more time when we go again to get more exploring done.

A Day in York

I quite like York but haven’t been in a long time so last Saturday we decided to change that. York is approximately 40 miles northwest of Hull and it’s easily accessible by public transport. Taking the X46 bus takes about an hour and a half and costs £11 for a return ticket. We spent most of the day walking without a particular aim and came across a few gems.

The Warehouse

Close to the city centre we went to a dark, old looking warehouse that seemed to sell all sort of junk. Second-hand army jackets, leather suitcases in various stages of decay, old furniture, rusty bicycles, untuned pianos, dusty lamp shades, silver rings, random trinkets...  When we had a slightly closer look not all of this “junk” could be bought for a few quid. Close to the entrance was a locked cabinet with old books costing up to £400 and next to it a piece of T-Rex bone could have been ours for £28. Little archaeological artifacts such as mini statues and old Roman coins covered a very wide price range.

The Little Garden

There are so many little corners and alleys in York that I’d have trouble finding this garden again. It branched off one of the main roads and was pretty dinky! In essence it was an alleyway which was decorated with customised soft pots for flowers. I thought they were quite pretty especially when you don’t have much space in your garden you can get some lovely effects when they’re put together right. I have put this on my “to try one day” list. 

The Shambles
Hardly a secret gem, ‘The Shambles’ is generally considered to be the most well preserved medieval street in the world. The buildings are from the 14th and 15th century when it was still a butcher’s lane. Not one roof seems to be quite straight. The overhanging buildings protected the meat from direct sunlight and the pavements are slightly raised to wash away the blood from the doorsteps. In 1086 William the Conqueror mentioned ‘The Shambles’ in his Doomsday book and by now it has made it into countless tourist guides. I would have tried reaching the left and right side of the alley with outstretched arms, which is apparently possible in parts, but I think I would have vexed a lot of people. So it'd be nice to go there once all shops are closed to properly take it in without bumping into someone. There are plenty of quirky little shops as well as slightly more touristy ones to browse through if you have the patience and don’t mind a crowd. I was feeling quite zen that day and managed to “float” through the crowd. Well, until I started to get hungry anyway.
                                                                                    The National Railway Museum

Filled with curry and coffee (we didn’t have those at the same time), we made our way to the National Railway Museum. Like most museums in the UK it is free but you are asked if you want to give a £3 donation, however this is entirely voluntary. My train knowledge is limited and my feet were pretty tired from walking around town all day so I only remember one carriage and two trains in more detail. Queen Victoria’s carriage is situated in an inactive train station among many other royal and more common carriages. I do love the Victorian Age so seeing the carriage she used to travel in was really exciting. Inside everything was blue! As we went into the great hall we saw the Mallard. On 3 July 1938 it set a world record as the fastest steam train when it reached a speed of 126mph on Stoke Bank! The astonishing thing is that to this day the Mallard’s record is still unbroken. Next to the Mallard stood a Shinkansen Japanese bullet train. Shinkansen is a highspeed railway network in Japan and the driving car in the museum is a 0 series model, which was the first series. These trains could reach a speed of 130mph and later even 137mph. The 0 series retired in 2008 but can look back on a 44 year long history. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that the train didn’t stick in my mind because of its impressive stats but because the word Shinkansen reminded me of the German word Schimpansen (chimpanzees).

Once we had seen enough trains we bought a few essentials we couldn’t bear to leave behind in the city centre before all the shops closed. This included a bottle of Lindisfarne mead, tasty pasties and my newly discovered favourite thing: cinder toffee. Pasty and toffee have long disappeared but the mead is still sitting in the fridge waiting to be opened...

Six Miles of Birdage at Bempton Cliffs

Photo of parts of the cliffs taken near Filey.

Apparently today is Yorkshire Day. I don’t really know what that means. Wear a flat cap, drink ale and be sure to let everybody know you live in Yorkshire maybe. But for what it’s worth, I like living here. Yorkshire has a rugged beauty to it, especially the moors and the seaside. There is a 6 mile stretch of chalky coastline about an hour north of Hull. It’s a nature reserve called Bempton Cliffs, which is the scene of a noisy spectacle from April until August. About 200,000 seabirds breed along the cliff line and it’s amazing to watch and hear. It is also a little bit smelly so don’t expect a fresh sea breeze...

Drenched!

I went to Bempton for the first time in late spring/early summer 2011. I’d just finished my final modules at uni and had some weeks to fill before I had to head back to Germany so I went on random day trips from Hull to places that sounded interesting. I was still a bit of a newbie to this “dressing sensibly when going outside”-thing and ended up wearing jeans and a cotton jumper for a day out in the pouring rain. I had only just discovered the genius of wearing waterproof shoes and was so happy with myself that I didn’t think of waterproofing the rest of me. After all my jumper had a hood so... Well, needless to say my first experience was damp and cold. I vividly remember cursing those smelly birds for luring me out. To top it all off the next train back to Hull was not until an hour and a half so I sat in Bempton’s village pub shivering over a cup of tea and trying to dry myself with the hand dryer in the bathroom. Dashing! But even when the train finally arrived, it took an hour to get to Hull and then I had to walk for another 40 minutes to get back to my student accommodation. I learnt my lesson and am now the proud owner of three waterproof jackets! It’s funny how my hiking boots recently gave up their waterproof properties, though. I only seem to be allowed to have one or the other.

Either way, Bempton was not on the top of my list of places to visit once I had moved back to Hull but a few weekends ago we walked from Flamborough to Filey via Bempton Cliffs on a non-rainy day. There are a couple of viewpoints along the cliffs and several RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) members had set up their binoculars and were answering visitors’ questions. That’s when I saw my first close-up of a puffin in the wild! You quickly get the hang of puffin spotting and I found them very recognisable due to their fluttery flight and their colourful beak. They normally seek a solitary existence out at sea but come to the cliffs to breed around May-July. If you want to get a close look at them then DO NOT forget your binoculars like we might have done, ahem.

One bird species you do have a good chance of getting a close look at even without binoculars is the gannet. Bempton Cliffs is the only gannet breeding area on the British mainland although 25% of the northern gannet population breeds in the UK. Islands such as the Scottish St Kilda and the Shetlands are major gannet territory! They are big birds with a wingspan of up to 2 metres and it takes them 5 years to reach maturity.

The final bird I could recognise was also the most common one to be seen whizzing around the cliffs: the kittiwake. 10% of the UK’s kittiwake population are at home at Bempton. There are only 8 major bird species living at the cliffs throughout the year so the number is manageable and I should probably make an effort to learn them all and tell them from each other... maybe. I found this guide to what highlights can be found at the cliffs throughout the year pretty interesting and it gives you an idea of what birds to expect when.

Incidentally, the cliffs are also a great place for going porpoise and minke whale spotting. I’d like to do that soon so this would require another trip to the seaside. Hurray! I’ll be sure to pack binoculars and a raincoat this time.

Walking From Hull to Paull

Recently John and I decided to just start walking and see where we’d end up. The idea was to pack a sleeping bag, a bivvy bag, a tarp, food and water and then just walk. It’s as easily said as it is done so we put our plan into action last Friday. We chose to walk east along the Humber towards the North Sea in the hope of reaching the only riverside village downstream of Hull: Paull.

We set off at 5pm after the sun stopped burning everything in its path. I was a little bit anxious because I had already walked several miles that day in what might not have been the most sensible shoes. But I just put a plaster on the sore bit and decided I would just walk as far as I could.

Bird Gathering

The route to Paull is pretty easy to follow. Once you get to the Humber all you have to do is follow the river downstream. With the Humber on our right and the industrial area of Hull port on our left we walked past abandoned wooden ships, manky cats, old railway tracks and ramshackle buildings. At the ferry port we watched the Pride of Rotterdam being loaded for its trip back to the continent but despite walking through so much industry it was surprisingly green. Once you make it past the docks there is a wide strip of high grass and hardy wild flowers between industrial estates and the river. We saw a deer and a fox and watched a bird gathering.

We had to stop our straight route to get through Salt End Chemicals Park. It felt a little bit eerie and post-apocalyptic walking past these huge metal containers and buildings without another human soul in sight. The smell certainly didn’t help either! Once we left Salt End behind us we rejoined the Humber and were only a few hundred metres from Paull.

After some searching and indecisiveness we finally found a spot to camp between two lighthouses on the edge of the Humber at Thorngumbald Clough. The two lighthouses replaced the lighthouse in the village (it’s now a private residence) in the late 19th century. Navigating through the Humber is very challenging because the sand banks constantly shift. The two Thorngumbald Clough lights are “leading lights”. One is the low-light and the other is the high-light. When the captain saw the lights of both aligned one over the other he knew that he was in the deep water zone of the Humber. The lighthouses are still operational today.

The view over the river was amazing and I don’t think we could have found a more scenic place to sleep. We used two sticks we found by the beach to put the tarp up and the large rocks on the riverbank were great to tie the cord to. Smashing use of the resources available (mostly thanks to John)! Because we camped in quite high grass and didn’t want to get eaten alive by bugs we hung a mosquito net into the tarp. All snug with a great view and safe from bitey blighters we had dinner and a celebratory sip of whisky.

It was an early start the next morning. I had slept quite lightly but find that when I sleep outdoors I don’t need as much sleep to feel awake. The plan for the day was to visit the gun battery Fort Paull; commissioned by Henry VIII it is now a museum. It didn’t open until 10am though so I had time to watch some Spongebob on my phone and see the Pride of Hull arrive from Rotterdam.

It’s £6 per adult to get in to Fort Paull and it just so happened that we were the first visitors of the day. It is a popular destination for paranormal investigators, served as a training ground during WWII and was the place Charles I retreated to after he was denied access to Hull (a hub of Parliament supporters) during the Civil War in the 17th century. Fort Paull has a lot of underground tunnels and they smell quite damp and could do with some airing. In many of the rooms exhibits with mannequins have been put up. The general theme seemed to be military and Britishness.

Fort Paull

It is also home of the last remaining heavy transport aircraft Blackburn Beverley XB259. You can go in and climb around and the thought of the back hatch opening midflight to drop cargo was not at all appealing to me. Blackburn Beverleys were used by the RAF from 1957 until 1967. The Beverley sits in the middle of a large lawn area next to a brick building and a large plastic dinosaur. The plastic dinosaur marks the entrance of a playground for the kids. They had a blow-up slide! Alas, I am just a wee bit older than 15 so I wasn’t allowed on. Mean...

My favourite random object
we came across.

If you fancy a coffee or tea to sip on the lawn I’d recommend you bring your own. We visited the café and while I’m not normally too squirmish with my food I couldn’t even finish my cup of tea. The jug with yesterday’s milk was poured out in front of our eyes and immediately refilled with UHT milk and the spoons to stir our drinks with were sat in a mug of stale water. The whole place had the same damp smell to it as the underground tunnels and I insisted on sitting outside where the air was more breathable. My imagination provided me with vivid images of the state of the kitchen so we went to a pub in Paull to have lunch instead. After being full of food we felt too lazy to walk back to Hull and caught the bus.

Just walking is a great way of getting to know your surroundings and going to places that you might not normally get to. We had some terrific views along the way and found loads of little visual gems. And despite serving a terrible cup of tea, Fort Paull was a worthwhile experience. Can’t wait to get walking again!