Runswick Bay

Runswick Bay is on the coast of North Yorkshire, just two miles along from Staithes.  It was such a sunny day when we visited the other week; we again parked at the top of the hill and walked down.  If you do drive to the bottom the hill coming back up is very steep – it used to scare me when I was younger! 

Runswick has lots of seaside houses and winding paths that you can weave your way through on your way to the beach; I managed to find a sky blue one.  The stretch of beach is quite long and, if the tide isn’t too far in, you can make it to the caves where you can find ammonites and such like.

Staithes

Staithes is a little seaside village in North Yorkshire that I visited the other day.  Parking at the top of the cliffs, you make your way down the steep bank until you reach the village where are there are a few little shops and places to eat.  We walked along the beach as the tide was coming in –quite quickly – and we nearly got caught out by it!  But there’s a smaller beach nearer to the shops that you can walk on too.  You can also walk out into the harbour and look back at the village.

Auckland Castle

Auckland Castle, in Bishop Auckland, originally established as a hunting lodge, was built in 1183 before being demolished and rebuilt hundreds of years later.  When we arrived at the castle there was a wedding taking place so part of the castle was closed off; we did get to look around some of the exhibitions, including future plans for the place.  The rain stopped us from venturing out around the castle very far so I’m hoping to head back in better weather.

Emmerdale Studio Tour

Last month I went to Leeds to do the Emmerdale tour of the village; you can find my post on that here.  This time we went into the centre of Leeds to the ITV studios where Emmerdale’s indoor scenes are filmed.  When we arrived we had tea and a cake in the café while we waited for the tour before ours to finish, then we were given lanyards to wear around the sets and shown into the first room. 

The first place we were shown was the storyboard room. Next, we saw where hair and make-up is done and we got shown the set where the salon is filmed. (Although it was quite dark so the photos aren’t the best!)  We were shown some of the props and costumes that the actors have worn in the past. We also got to see a few of the houses and a miniature model village which was cute. The best bit was going inside the pub - I even got my photo taken behind the bar.

White Horse, Sutton Bank

We went to Sutton Bank the other week to see the white horse; I’ve been to the one in Wiltshire but surprisingly not to this one before.  We parked at the top of the bank and followed the footpath.  I took some photos of the view and was surprised to see how close we were to the gliders; they were just feet away from the path.  We watched as the plane took them into the air then let them go to glide on their own – something which I wouldn’t dare to ever do, no matter how good a photo it would make!  We got to watch them land too, it was quite a bumpy landing for a couple of them.

Known as the Kilburn White Horse, it is 314 feet long and 228 feet high. You can get a better view of the horse from the picnic area bottom of the hill.