‘A’ Peter Gilliland  ‘B’ Kathleen Gilliland

It was dry and warm but not too sunny as 57 members set out for Whitby. We stopped for coffee in Guisborough before travelling on to Lythe, a village close to Sandsend. 31 members opted for this easy ‘A’ walk today while 18 set out on the ‘B’ walk. Both walks followed the same paths crossing fields to the hamlet of East Barnby. After descending farm tracks we entered woodland belonging to the Mulgrave Estate which is only open to the public on Wednesdays and weekends. Woodland tracks were followed to the ruins of the old Mulgrave Castle where we met up with the ‘A’ party. They continued on their way which was now a different route to the ‘B’ party. After lunch, the ‘B’ party walked through the Estate to emerge at the coast in Sandsend. Here we descended to the beach and walked along to Whitby. There was plenty of activity on this glorious sunny afternoon. As we reached Whitby pier, the ‘A’ party was coming from behind. Whitby was extremely busy and it was chaos at the coach pick up point. However, our quick thinking driver, Brian, managed to turn his coach around before getting struck in the traffic jam caused by coaches being parked up in the coach bays instead of using them as the pick up points with a 10 minutes waiting period. The evening stop was in Guisborough.

Flowers: chicory, echinops, fleabane, ivy leaved toadflax, meadowsweet and ragwort.

Photo c. K.Gilliland