I'm not sure of the actual time we set off for York, but if it wasn't 9am, it wasn't much past. A timed entry ticket to the National Railway Museum (NRM) meant that we had to build in a lot of wiggle room in the scheduled 90 minute drive along the M62. It's Monday, not in the school holidays, so I'm sure that the good people at the NRM wouldn't hold us to the time, but as we had a long day ahead of us, we thought it wise to get going promptly.
There's a network of motorways around Manchester, and another around Leeds, linked by the east-west M62 across the Pennines. They're all running at capacity during the day, so any change in the flow causes mayhem, and while we were only delayed by about 20 minutes on this run, it just went to show the importance of wiggle room when working to time limits. Road works at various points along the way had us crawling, and stopped, in places. I genuinely don't know how people with schedules manage, especially in the Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds corridor.
Once past Leeds it was reasonably plain sailing, but in York itself, we were caught in three or four sets of temporary traffic lights, although we had at least been warned about them by the NRM who sent quite a detailed e-mail about getting there. Ultimately, though, we arrived on time and the wiggle room allowance had done its job.
The National Railway Museum is exactly as it says, the UK's main railway museum. As such, it has the same status as some of the key museums in London and is part-funded by the Government so that entry to the place is free for anyone, which is just excellent. The timed tickets are, of course, just to regulate the flow of visitors, and as it can get seriously busy during school holidays, there's method in their madness.
I won't write out too much about the museum, but if you get a chance, consult their website here.
One of the main reasons to visit was to see the fabled "Mallard", the LNER Steam Locomotive that still holds the world speed record for a steam powered railway engine, at 126 miles per hour. The loco is a streamlined Gresley A4, and is the object of adoration by railway buffs the world over. Her steaming days are over, but there she was in the main hall, standing tall in her blue livery, and getting Charlie very excited. Of course there is so much more at the museum than the Mallard, and we spent a good few hours trundling around and taking things in. If you're ever in the UK, and York specifically, the NRM should be on your To Do List.
Of course the NRM does want your money. There are paid special exhibitions, extensive gift shops, quite pricey eating places and naturally, the constant clamour for donations. That said, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to contribute something when you visit, even if it's only buying a cup of tea.
From the NRM, we set our course east, not west, and made our way through the East Yorkshire Wolds towards Flamborough Head. Flamborough is a headland on Yorkshire's North Sea coast, a little way north of the Humber. We were going in the hope of seeing some of those cute little seabirds, the Puffins, who come to Flamborough's cliffs and waters in the summer. There are many seabirds that congregate there, and hoards of Grey Seals, and of course there's the famous Flamborough Head Lighthouse, which was what was really exercising Charlie.
It's a lovely drive from York, and the road goes through Stamford Bridge (The Battle of... for the history types), and the delightfully named Wetwang. We did take a short detour into the resort town of Bridlington, but I will gloss over that and go straight to Flamborough.
The weather was gorgeous. It was windy of course, but warm and dry, and made for a great walk down to the cliff edge to look for Puffins. Sadly, I have to report, that no Puffins were seen. We did see thousands of other birds, and hundreds of Grey Seals, out lounging on the low-tide exposed rocks. It's a spectacular place anyway, Puffins or not, and the views up and down the Yorkshire coast were stunning in the sunshine. DW spoke to a woman who was sporting a camera with a long lens, as many people were on the clifftop, and she suggested that we get ourselves along to Bempton Cliffs, about five miles north, where the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has set up a visitor centre and a couple of viewing platforms on the clifftop, where Puffins may, or may not, be seen. A plan was made, but not before what turned out to be a fruitless search for a very late lunch for Emma and Charlie.
It's an interesting fact that a lot of fish and chip shops in Yorkshire still cook their chips in beef dripping, which is fine for clogging your arteries, but a non-starter for vegans. The cafe at Flamborough was one of the guilty places, as was the place on the outskirts of Bridlington that had been recommended, and that was after trying to find a pub that served food on a Monday afternoon in rural East Yorkshire. Having failed to find an appropriate lunch, we made for Bempton Cliffs anyway. The visitor centre there was closed, it was gone 5pm by then, and although the car park was supposed to be closed, it was full of cars, so in we went. There's a whole lot more to Bempton Cliffs than just the viewing platforms, most of which we didn't have time to discover. The RSPB are doing a great job in creating a bird-friendly environment on their land, including the provision of what seemed like millions of bugs swarming up from the wild grass there.
The views across the cliffs there were amazing, and the viewing platforms allowed a really close up view of the thousands of seabirds nesting on the cliffs. The sights, sounds, and smells, were most impressive. Alas there were no Puffins, at least none that we could see. Nearly every person there who was out enjoying the warm evening had a camera with a long lens on it; I felt naked without one. DW engaged another twitcher about the Puffins, and she said that sightings of the colourful bird were rarer these days, quite probably due to global warming pushing their main food source, small eels, away from the Yorkshire coast. Skomer Island is Puffin paradise (I think I already knew that), but as Skomer is in West Wales, over 300 miles away, that was not a viable option for this trip.
The final part of the long day was a drive back into York for a bite to eat at the Fat Hippo restaurant in York. It was a push to get there in a reasonable time, but the evenings are long right now, the solstice is but a few days away, so we drove in lovely sunshine back the way we came, and pitched up in central York in good time to make the table booking that DW had set up online. Google pointed us to something called Q-Park Shambles, a parking garage not too far from where we needed to be, so we made our way there. It turned to be a really smart multi-storey car park in a new block just inside the City walls. There was a huge steel gate across the entrance, but it folded back obediently as we approached and I drove in to collect a ticket (yes, the machine was working). The garage itself was light years from the dingy mess that was the parking garage at Manchester's Arndale Centre. The ceiling wasn't too low, it was white-painted and well lit, and the spaces allowed room to actually get out of your car. There was a pee-free lift to the ground floor and a lobby that was only accessible to people holding a ticket. DW said it was going to cost us an arm and a leg, but I said I didn't care because it was the best multi-story I'd ever come across in the UK.
We walked through York's mediaeval streets to the restaurant, taking in the famous Shambles, and Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate, on the way, and settled in for a reasonable meal that the vegans among us could partake of. I'm not sure that the Fat Hippo will be on our list of re-visits, but it did get us into York. I suggested that after the meal, we walk over to the Minster, given the gorgeous warm evening, and that's what we did. I was actually reliving a visit I'd made with my family in 1968, when we were heading to North Yorkshire to see my dad's brother. We'd pulled into York for my dad to call ahead, and driven pretty much up to the front door of the Minster, on a very similar evening, albeit almost sixty years earlier.
York Minster is a mostly mediaeval cathedral that is absolutely enormous. It has an immense feeling of bulk, especially when you stand at the twin-towered front of it, and it dominates the city from wherever you are. York has a long a varied history, going back to the Romans, but this mediaeval centrepiece underpins the entire place. It was just wonderful to sit there and admire the building. We were actually were waiting for the big bell to sound the 9pm hour, but it stops ringing at 8pm, so that was a bust.
Then it was back to the Q-Park, through the ticket only admission, up in the pee-free lift, pay (cheaper than the Arndale!), and out though the barrier and the fancy folding gates, and we were out onto the road again and heading for Manchester as the light faded. The traffic as far as Leeds was really quiet, but the M1 was closed for repair work at Rothwell, so we had to take a short diversion route, although it didn't delay us much. The M62 was peppered with more roadworks, and far too busy for 10:30 at night in my opinion, which of course accounts for nothing. As we crested Windy Hill, the highest point of the motorway, indeed the highest point of any motorway in England at a little over 1,200 feet, the sky was still quite light, even at that late hour, and served to remind us just how far north we are compared with our home in Ontario.
We rolled back into Salford at a little gone 11pm after a round trip of at least 250 miles. We'd gone about as far east as you can go in these here parts, and visited one of the best museums, in one of the best cities, in England. It was quite the day, and our last big excursion of this trip. Tomorrow is is a special birthday for the youngest of our party, so it'll be a quiet day. I hope!
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