Yorkshire: Staithes to Whitby 13/6/2007****

 

Port Mulgrave   Sandsend, tide in   Coastal gumplant   Deepgrove Wyke railway tunnel

We left Staithes up Church Street to the cliff-top path, part of the Cleveland Way.  It led through ordinary farmland with singing skylarks until it reached the actual cliff-edge and National Trust territory, where pignut grew.  We came down to Port Mulgrave, a disused harbour once used to ship ironstone from nearby quarries.  We climbed once more to follow the cliffs, mostly covered by a sea-fret on a drizzly overcast day.  The next bay was Runswick with a more substantial beach (but only limpets washed up).  We left it walking beside a little stream coming down at Hob Holes, a line of caves in the cliffs.  The wet shales were slippery and we were glad to achieve the cliff-top path once more.  The vegetation is affected by farming, but tends to heath.  We skirted Kettle Ness, a headland left grey and bare by alum-quarrying, stopping for lunch on a bench overlooking the sea.  We more or less followed the line of a former railway until it disappeared into a bricked-up tunnel.  The cliffs had much wood vetch, the fields red-legged partridge, and we stopped to watch a stoat hunting.  At Deepgrove Wyke there was a steep descent on treacherously greasy sandstone steps in the shade of the only woodland of the day, passing tall tufts of drooping sedge.  At the bottom we joined the ashy track of the dismantled railway where it left the tunnel and followed this to Sandsend.  There were more interesting plants on the sides of the cutting and at one point we could descend to a marshy area lower on the cliffs where there was a mixture of heather, bell heather and common sedge, patches of marsh pennywort and crowberry, and a few spikes of northern marsh and common spotted orchids.  Evidence of quarrying was frequent here.  What trees survived were stunted and burned by the sea-winds.  The coast is part of the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Heritage Coast.  When we entered Sandsend the tide was very high and the cold east wind that had got up was throwing waves across the road.  There was no beach left to walk and we had to use the road, with a golf-course between us and the cliff-edge, until a public track turned down to the coast at the end of the links.  Here in more devastated wasteland created from quarries we found a plant of white mignonette and much spiny restharrow.  We came across clumps of kidney vetch as we joined the concrete boulevard along the front west of Whitby, past the Pavilion under a covered arcade, and reached a small area of grass with a statue of Captain Cook and an arch of whale jawbone, overlooking the harbour.  Steps led down to winding streets underneath cliffs with naturalised coastal gumplant (its only British location) among wild cabbage. The harbourside was mostly devoted to amusement arcades and seafood-shops until the Bridge over the Esk, unchanged from 2½ decades ago, the night Elvis died.  The bridge was just closing again after being opened to let a small sailing ship through, causing traffic and pedestrians to stack up.  From here we found the main shopping street of Baxtergate to catch a bus back to the top of Staithes. Coming down into Whitby Harbour