During 2021 we were still dealing with the Covid pandemic restrictions, and although some foreign travel was allowed to a degree, it was more bother than it was worth between the testing, quarantining and the high chance of having to cancel. So for yet another year we decided just to holiday in the UK, and to stick with camping so that should anything unforeseen happen and our holiday/s were to be cancelled, we wouldn’t be losing out on much money.
Having been on a Haven camping holiday before, we get occasional email offers for future bookings. The Haven campsite at Thornwick Bay (near Flamborough and Bridlington) were offering a one week camping stay in July (just before the English school holidays), complete with electric hook-up, for just £112. In addition Haven were including a “Covid refund policy” on all their bookings, meaning that if anything at all to do with Covid were to affect our holiday, we would get a full refund or the option to rebook. Having been let down before, this was ideal, and at such a bargain price, we looked at all their campsites and chose to book up for Thornwick Bay in Yorkshire.
The location was excellent for things that we like to do. There were stunning cliff walks and pretty bays that you could walk down to from the campsite, the closest being Thornwick Bay, about 20 minutes walk, although our favourite was North Landing situated about 30 minutes further along the cliff walk. The traditional seaside towns of Bridlington, Scarborough and Whitby were all fairly close by, with Whitby being the furthest away (about 40 miles). York city was also around 40 miles away. There were plenty of other lesser-known seaside towns nearby that we didn’t get round to visiting. To drive 40 miles in this part of Yorkshire takes around 1.5 hours.
All of the Haven resorts are very family-orientated, making them an excellent choice if you have children to entertain, and a cheap holiday for couples. Our “resort” included, amongst other things, an on-site bar & restaurant, an indoor swimming complex (which we didn’t make as much use of as we had hoped due to the pool’s showers being closed because of Covid restrictions), a Showbar (which we only used once as the entertainment was too family/child orientated for us) and a rather expensive mini-mart shop (we ended up shopping in the Co-op down the road in Flamborough as it was much cheaper).
After much deliberation, we decided to take our new Bell Tent, which we had only used twice before (both times during which we had thunderstorms and high winds which resulted in the tent getting soaked inside!) We had contacted the manufacturer who had sent us out some waterproofing spray, so we decided to take it with us, spray it once we had put it up, and hope for the best! This time we were lucky. We did get some torrential rain (along with some lovely warm sunny weather – a right “mixed bag”) and the tent stood up to it, not a drip of water inside. Fortunately there were no 40-50 mph winds accompanying the rain, but this meant we don’t yet know if the tent will stand up to horizontal torrential rain blown in by 50 mph winds.
We started our holiday by visiting Paul’s sister and brother-in-law in Cheshire, who we hadn’t seen since September last year. We had a lovely couple of days catching up, accompanied by some nice sunny weather. The day we left, we awoke to torrential rain, which continued almost all the way to Yorkshire. By the time we arrived, though, we were blessed with warmth and sunshine.
As previously mentioned, our weather during the week was quite a “mixed bag”. We had some lovely sunshine and warm weather, plus a couple of thunderstorms and the odd hour or so of torrential rain. The weather forecast never seemed to be accurate, and overall, what we got tended to be better than was forecast. We used both the BBC and Met Office forecasts for Flamborough and North Landing.
During our week, we had plenty to do. Some days we stayed local and did the cliff walks along to bays and beaches. North Landing beach was good, and probably the most popular, the setting is very pretty. We took a half hour boat trip (£8 each) which took us along the coast a little, into one of the “smugglers caves” and past seabirds which included puffins (which we also later viewed from the cliffs above – the boat didn’t really stop for long enough to get any decent photos of them).
Flamborough Head / Cliffs Nature Reserve is a great spot to explore and enjoy cliff walks. As you enter Flamborough Head you pass the old lighthouse first, and then the new lighthouse where there is a car park (paid), toilets and a pub/restaurant. This was also walking distance from our campsite, so need to take the car (although we did get soaked in one of the downpours whilst walking back). There is a pretty cool and unusual rock feature that you can see just a short way along the cliff path (heading just a very little way towards South Landing). It’s called the Drinking Dinosaur. Can you make it out from our photo below?
Here are a couple more photos from the cliff walks we did around Flamborough Head, North Landing and Thornwick Bay. To walk the cliff path from Flamborough Head to Thornwick Bay takes about an hour, maybe a little longer, plus extra time for a fair few photo stops!
Another walk that we did, which was very nice, was from the car park at Danes Dyke. We firstly went down to check out the beach at Danes Dyke, and then continued along the clifftop path to South Landing. It’s only a mile between the two beaches, and not far at all (5-10 mins) to Danes Dyke beach from the car park. We paid for two hours parking, but we barely went over the hour. If you wanted to linger on one or both of the beaches for a while, then it would be best to pay for two, or possibly three hours parking (it’s not expensive).
For trips that required a drive, our first one was to Bridlington, both to have a look around and to stock up on some food/drink shopping in the supermarket. It isn’t far to Bridlington (about 5-6 miles), but would take quite some time to walk. On the day we went there it was quite overcast, and the seafront and beaches were surprisingly quiet. The south beach is sandy and the north beach is sand and shingle. The beaches are located on either side of the harbour. The south beach stretches for miles, eventually becoming Fraisthorpe beach after about a mile. As it was quiet when we went, we managed to get an hour’s free parking near the north beach, though we were quite lucky as most of the parking we saw was metered.
Our next trip was a longer journey of around 40 miles to York. We decided (I think wisely) to use the Park & Ride at Grimston Bar, which was easy to find, had plenty of parking spaces and was hassle-free. It was just a few miles on the bus into York, with buses running roughly every 8 minutes.
I had been to York before during one of our family holidays when I was a kid, but I didn’t remember it much, just the York Minster Cathedral as I still have an old postcard of it. Paul hadn’t been, but he quite fancied a look around. It’s described as a city with Roman roots and a Viking past, so it is very historic. There are lots of old buildings and narrow cobbled streets, the Shambles (and Shambles Market) being the most well known. Most of the ancient city walls are still standing and you can take a walk on them around the city centre. We got caught in a rain shower about half way along, so we abandoned the rest of the walk and headed for lunch. Once we felt that we had seen enough, we found our way back to the bus stop and on to the park and ride. Depending on how much you want to see, a half day will give a good overview, or a full day to really see the city in depth.
Our final “long” day out was to incorporate Whitby, Robins Hood’s Bay and Scarborough. The furthest place was Whitby, about 40 miles from the campsite (Scarborough is about 19 miles away, and Robin Hood’s Bay is just south of Whitby). Unfortunately we couldn’t get parked at Robin Hood’s Bay, so we didn’t get to see it, and in Whitby we got a parking fine, so be careful if you see notices saying one hour free parking – if it says “Disc Zone” you need a disc thing that you can set to show your arrival time (or apparently you can just write a note and put it on your dashboard). We have never seen such a thing before, so it didn’t occur to us to put a note with our arrival time on it, we just assumed the street would be regularly patrolled. We arrived back within the hour to find a £50 parking notice on our windshield! When we phoned up to ask why, this is how we found out about what the Disc Zones mean. So be warned!
Whitby is very pretty, and a typical British seaside town. It has the ruins of an abbey at the top of the “199 Steps”, a harbour and a beach. It’s very photogenic. We would have stayed for longer and dipped our feet in the sea, but we were rather annoyed at the parking fine, so we moved on a little sooner than planned as we neither wanted to leave the car and risk a further fine, or pay for parking on top of the fine we’d already received. (UPDATE: We appealed the parking fine, and it was cancelled due to the fact that we had said we were tourists who didn’t understand the “disc system”. In addition, Paul had proof from an App on his phone that we had returned within the allowed “free parking time”. So should you find yourself in a similar situation, it is worth appealing as they do seem to look at the situation with understanding.)
After failing to get a parking space at Robin Hood’s Bay (and not wanting to risk any street parking), we drove on to Scarborough, where we parked at the West Pier (metered car park). Scarborough is probably the most typical of the seaside towns, and 40 (or so) years on from my last visit, I saw that they are still doing donkey rides along the beach.
We went to the Lifeboat Fish Bar (as recommended on TripAdvisor) and got a portion of haddock, chips and curry sauce to share as a picnic on the sandy beach. You have to watch out for the seagulls – we saw one person nearby being swooped on by a seagull who stole his lunch, and another seagull clipped me with it’s wings. They’re pretty cheeky! However, we managed to eat the fish and chips, which were very nice, and made sure we put the carton in the bin straight afterwards to keep the seagulls away. We paddled our feet in the sea and then went for a walk and a drink before heading home.
So that about sums up what we did while we were camping at Thornwick Bay. There was plenty to amuse us for the week, and if you were with children, there are also activities to amuse them on-site. The only thing missing was an outdoor pool (which incidentally the Haven Blue Dolphin further up the coast has, along with lots more to keep the kids amused, although personally I think the location at Thornwick is hard to beat).
As far as eating goes, the on-site restaurant (The Lighthouse) was pretty good and reasonably priced at around £10 average per main course. We also had a lovely meal in the traditional North Star Hotel and Restaurant, where Paul had prawn cocktail and a huge T-Bone steak and I had creamy garlic mushrooms and a huge battered haddock. The wine was also nice and reasonably priced. The only disappointment was the tiramisu dessert that we shared. Our bill came to £85 including two drinks each and a tip.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our holiday to Yorkshire, and that it might be of some help to anyone who is planning a trip. As always, any shares would be much appreciate, just click on the buttons below. If you have enjoyed reading this, you may also like to follow us on Facebook by clicking here. Thanks for reading!
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