Helmsley and Hutton le Hole

We broke camp at around 9.30am and headed to Helmsley, one of our favourite market towns in Yorkshire. Lovely upmarket shops including am excellent butcher and a wonderful deli/food shop. Lots of cafes but we chose on which was also a deli and ordered tea for two with a cheese scone to share, which is what we usually do, creatures of habit as we are! We did not consult a menu. It duly arrived and there were two scones which they told us is their serving for one person, with herb mascarpone and home-made chutney. Leaf tea was served in fancy cast-iron pots. Beautifully presented and delicious but the bill came to £10.30! As we are used to paying around £5.50,our “kitty” purse nearly had a heart attack and had to have an injection of cash! We went into the church in Helmsley which we had not been into before. Beautiful stained glass windows and Patron Trees painted on the stone walls. We had never seen anything like it before.

We then found where the Cleveland Way begins at Helmsley where you can do a seven mile circular walk to Rievaulx Abbey, Temples and Terraces. It’s something we would plan to do on another occasion. We then headed for the campsite at Rosedale Abbey (no abbey ruins visible today but it was only ever a small monastery. We stopped off at Hutton le Hole which is one of the most attractive villages in the North York Moors. Lovely honey-coloured terraced cottages with red tile roofs and white picket fences. The sheeps were freely grazing on the expansive village green. We then drove on through thick fog over the North York Moors. We are sure the scenery must be fantastic if only we could have seen it. On arrival at our campsite, we were very disappointed with both the quality and the position of the touring pitches, coupled with a very unfriendly warden/owner. So we decided not to stay and luckily got our money back, having pre-booked. We decided to head to Robin Hood’s Bay where we had already booked a campsite for the nights of 31st May and 1 st June. We managed to phone en-route and established that we could also stay on 30th. However we had a scary drive across the Moors in very thick fog but we safely arrived at the campsite and it is really nice. Once we set up camp, we walked into Robin Hood’s Bay by which time it was 5pm and visibility was still poor. Back to camp and enjoyed a proper campers supper of sausages, butter beans which we had made at home and were able to heat up in the microwave in Wolfgang. Another game of scrabble and then it was bedtime.Read more