Cloughton Day 5 - Wednesday 29/10/25 - Training

Today we visited the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR).  On arrival, it looked a bit busier than I expected, we found a place in the overflow (private) car park and paid our £7 for the privilege.  I queued at the ticket office, only to be told that today, and for a few other days this week, they have the Flying Scotsman on the line.  It is doing return trips to Whitby. Had we known, that would have been a much better place to start.  It is booked by a third party, so the NYMR cannot sell tickets.

Rather disappointed, we wandered in Pickering, and St. Peter's church. Here they have uncovered some amazing wall paintings, that were covered up by the reformation.  Although now pale, try to imagine what they would have been like when freshly painted.

We came back for the Flying Scotsman's arrival in Pickering and stood on the bridge.  (see Video above).

We also saw Locomotion 1, a replica of a very early steam engine, built in 1825 by the pioneering railway engineers George and Robert Stephenson. It was especially interesting as just a couple of days before we had watched the Guy Martin programme where they built it.

 

For lunch, we walked back into town and found a café called "Feast".  Unfortunately, our meal was more like a snack than a feast. 

Goats cheese salad = a few green leaves and a small round warmed gaots cheese. 

 

We left Pickering with plenty of time, so decided to visit the Hayburn Wyck waterfall. It's a long walk down hill to the falls, and up again, but definitely worth a visit. Most of the way the path is clearly marked, and partly paved, but there are sometimes high steps and sometimes the path is missing.   We just did it in the 1 hr of the parking ticket, perhaps we were slower than we could have been, because I was in trainers rather than walking boots.  It was muddy in places.  We had gone down from the car park, but came back up a different way, directly to the pub.  Then went in (and moved the car into the pub car park) for refreshments.

 

In the evening we visited the Blacksmiths Arms, for a drink, and found ourselves in the bar for the quiz night.  Entry was £1 each, the money is donated to charity.  The pub provided sandwiches and chips for the participants.  We came 9th out of 12, with 22/40 (55%).  I was so pleased we didn't come last.