Yorkshire Staycation Day 1 - Scarborough

Overlooking Scarborough Beach

It has been a while since I have done any entries in this blog and I apologise for this. I can’t even blame Lockdown and the lack of travel that resulted since I had abandoned this blog well before that. But here I am and I will try again. 

Today, for the fist time since November 2019, I have left my own country and travelled across a border for fun - to England! Seems silly to be so excited about this since I actually live in Scotland. But keep in mind, we were unable to travel further than 5 miles from our home for nonessential purposes for many months last year and the border between England and Scotland was closed for a while too. 

Apologies in advance for teh quality of most of my photos....I actually forgot my camera! So most of these are from my phone and also a little camera Alan loaned me!

The distance travelled today does not reflect the time it took us…..245 miles and it took us 8 hours. It should have only taken us 5.5 hours, which would not have been bad, but thee was a road traffic accident at the worst possible place - near Appleby. The traffic was struggling near Appleby anyway due to the annual Horse Fair. According to the article I will share, 40,000 gypsy, travellers and visitors descend upon Appleby for this event. There are signs on the motorway warning about horse and carriages  it sort of felt like driving through Amish country and the signs I have seen there. 

 

I was driving and was pleasantly surprised to meet up with a group of caravans and gorgeous horses turning off the motorway toward Appleby. They were not the only ones we saw either. But right after we passed them, we got snarled up in a huge traffic jam that seemed to stretch form one side of the A66 to the other. It was really awful to be stuck in that. Eventually, we learned it was an accident and the A66 was closed. It took us over an hour to get through this and then, every so often, we would get slowed down with another gorgeous gypsy or traveller caravan. 

My goal today was to get to Northallerton to try one of Betty’s Tea Rooms’ Fat Rascals. I had only learnt of Fat Rascals when watching an interesting tv series about British celebrities travelling the canals. The one through Yorkshire was fascinating in itself, but then they mentioned “Fat Rascals”. I was intrigued and made my own, which were absolutely delicious. But I still wanted to try the real thing. To do that, I had to be in Yorkshire! We did not get to Northallerton until 2:30 and had left Ayr at 9, no lunch stop. So we were really hungry. Found Betty’s and there was a queue to get in, plus they did not allow dogs. So I went in to the shop and simply bought some for later. 

These Fat Rascals look overcooked, the cherries are usually bright red.

 

One thing I had forgotten about England is they do not serve food all day long. When I fist moved to Scotland, they closed after specific meal times too but that had stopped years ago. Easy to forget it still happens just over the border. fOnce we realised we were not getting lunch at Betty’s, we had to scramble to find a place to eat. It was 3:15 by then. I thought most places stopped serving food at 2:30. We found the Tickle Toby pub and had 10 minutes to oder! Whew. Scampi was delicious too. 

Then it was on to Scarborough. We are staying at the New Southland Hotel on the South Cliff. It is much quieter on this side. We could walk to the promenade overlooking the beach, but it is a long way down. However the Cliff Lift is near us and we took it down to the beach…going down costs £1, going up costs £1.50. It is well worth the money. But it was also getting to be dinner time by now and we were concerned about the time.

The hotel restaurant did not close until 8pm but we could not take Skye into the restaurant and the bar didn’t serve food, so we went on a quest….the nearest fish and chip shop was closed, so we ended up with picnic food and had a wonderful picnic on. Bench overlooking the South Beach. bliss. Before ending the day though, I need to see how the real Fat Rascals were! After our lovely picnic and walk in the park on the way back to the hotel, we had to make a choice: Bar or hotel room for coffee and Fat Rascals. After the effort to get them, it had to be them! And the verdict is……they were ok. I believe they were overcooked and thought the ones I made myself were better. But if we had ordered them and sat in the tea room, they might have been fresher and a better experience. They still were delicious!

Here is the Cliff Lift, great fun, there is another one on the North Cliff too.