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Day 12 - 18th June 2015
Rest Day - Scarborough
My supporter for today who has very generously donated to
The Fred Hollows Foundation is:-
Richardson Cycles - Scarborough
My bike, Finn, has took bit of punishment getting this far,
so their work on my bike was very much appreciated.
The Fred Hollows Foundation is:-
Richardson Cycles - Scarborough
My bike, Finn, has took bit of punishment getting this far,
so their work on my bike was very much appreciated.
Day 12 - Rest day in Scarborough
No rush this morning – and how odd it felt not having to head off on the bike – well – not in the normal manner!! Immediately after breakfast, we walked Finn down to Richardson Cycles to try and be the first customer of the day!!
What great people – I explained what was wrong with Finn and the young bike mechanic’s expert eyes had already spotted some fraying of a cable and said he felt sure this would be the issue. Debbie Richardson recognising what I was doing and my need to continue tomorrow moved Finn to the front of the queue and said they would attend to it as soon as possible and would ring me when it was done.
We wandered the main street of Scarborough and purchased “Scarborough Rock” a suggestion made by biking buddy Linda Clark prior to the journey. I was fascinated – I hadn’t known anything like this in my youth and the way the name went right through the lolly was fascinating. Having a sweet tooth – of course I bought a couple to try!!
Coffee time had arrived – a woman sitting outside the café we chose was puppy-walking a German Shepherd for UK Guide Dogs – so we sat nearby and compared Guide Dog notes. The young dog was doing very well, and the handler was very firm with the many people who come along wanting to touch the dog, saying that he was learning to work and he wasn’t to be disturbed. Same issues world over!!
Waiting for my coffee to cool and Richardsons Cycles rang – Finn had responded to treatment and was all better!! How good was that!! Super quick I thought. I headed back to the bike shop (fortunately I had got my coffee in a take-out container) while Pauline and Pat went back to the Hotel to play musical cars again.
The young lad at Richardsons showed me “the evidence” and said that it was on the brink of quite an expensive repair had I continued on further. They discounted the original price which I thought was very fair anyway – and I have donated the equivalent discount to The Fred Hollows Foundation. A huge THANK-YOU guys. So glad this happened where it did and not miles from anywhere in the Scottish Highlands!!
Shame I wasn’t staying longer – the shop rides that you have (almost every day of the week) looked really interesting and I would have loved to joined one.
I “test” rode Finn back to the Hotel – without bike helmet – completely legal here – but wow did I feel uneasy and vulnerable!! Finn felt like new again tho – so relieved!!
Next stop was at the Scarborough Bowls Club for Pat to get to know her new Taylor Bowls better. She had been itching to play some more but with the weather, and other factors we hadn't managed to! No excuses here - an indoor, all-weather surface!! We had also noticed the previous day that they had a good restaurant and free WIFI – so I opted to go sit there, watch the bowls and see if I could catch up with FB a bit.
Pat found the indoor greens great and they rolled a lot more like an outdoor rink at home. Her bowls were much more accurate after the first couple of ends. The Ladies President came along and made herself known, and quite a few of the people sitting at the “rink-side dining” made comments about Pat’s shiny new plum coloured Taylor Bowls. Without the influence of “the elements” wind, sun, shade this indoor stuff is very constant and Pat felt with a bit of practice you could get pretty accurate playing on this surface.
The food smelt good – so at the end of her roll up we had a yummy bowl of soup, while we watched the start of the afternoon League players mixed fours competition. We decided to take a drive in to see the sights of this large holiday town – this would also satisfy the requirements of our “parking disc”.
Our hotel was perched some 70 metres above North Bay – the more peaceful end of Scarborough with a lovely wide open beach. We drove down to the beachside and around the rocky promontory (which has the castle ruins on high above) to the more popular South Bay. Here there is more of a harbour and the hustle and bustle of amusement arcades, cafes, more hotels and the “old town” which we hadn’t walked as far as in the morning.
I had also noticed when I was almost at our hotel the previous day Peasholm Park (the dolphin monument is outside this), an oriental themed park which houses many attractions including a model steam train. It also is home to an open air theatre. This closed in 1986 with James Last and his orchestra performing the final gig. However, it re-opened in 2010 with Jose Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa being the first to perform there!
The wind was pretty cold and showers were blowing through so we didn’t do a lot of walking around. We drove up to the 11th century Scarborough Castle ruins. Apparently this was heavily bombed by German warships in the first world war. It was a fascinating place to wander around and would have been much more fun if the weather was warmer.
We returned the reverse of the way we had come to stop beside a “big man” we had seen on the waterfront. This turned out to be Fred Gilroy – “Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers” is a giant steel structure made by Ray Lonsdale an artist fabricator and sculptor and is now on permanent display thanks to the generosity of a local Scarborough resident. The sculpture is based on a retired miner Ray became friends with who turned out to also be one of the first soldiers to leave the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of World War II. This piece of art is not just about Freddie Gilroy but represents all the normal people that were pulled out of an ordinary life and forced into a very extraordinary and dangerous one during the World Wars.
I enjoyed this brief tour of Scarborough, and I have loved that my ride came this way and I now know what Scarborough is like. With all due respect to the place, it is certainly past its “hay-day”. I know from various people my age that I have spoken to from England – it was where they went every holidays – and I am sure a lot of fun times were had here. It seems to me, that with the onset of cheap airfares etc – most young people would holiday abroad in Europe and Scarborough is now for the casual sight-seer (the category I class myself as) or, the more senior citizens of the community who have come here for a couple of weeks a year for the last gawd-only knows how many years!!
This was clearly in evidence at the hotel we were staying in. It was lovely to sit in the downstairs lounge – not only because it was the only area you could get WIFI, but also to listen and chat to other guests. I asked one gentleman who seemed to know a lot about the area where he had come from – he quite proudly puffed out his chest and said – “I’ve come all the way from Scunthorpe” – which his wife and he had done by train – and had done so for many a year!! I was unaware of the location of Scunthorpe – but in my ride the next day I saw a sign saying we were only 8 miles from it. So this couple’s annual adventure was only 100 kms from where they lived! They were not on their own – several seemed to be like this.
A bit about the hotel we stayed in – the Clifton Hotel, Queen’s Parade, Scarborough, stands on the North Bay cliff tops and was home to soldiers on home duty during both World War I and World War II. The location of the building offers commanding views of the North Sea. In its hey-day I would imagine a very grand place with lovely lounges, bar and dining room on the bottom floor. However, I have read that in the early 2000’s it was totally neglected and became quite an eye-sore. The current owners the Britannia Group have set about doing the place up. The amount of upkeep on old buildings like this is enormous, and it would cost a pretty penny to restore to its former glory I would imagine. However, after delving deeper on the internet they have made incredible progress – with even more to go. I would imagine the rates were very reasonable when we were there as not all rooms were in use with several currently being re-decorated. I must admit, I found the old style lift very quaint and appealing – except when people failed to close the “grill-style” door and it would refuse to budge from its destination no matter how many times you pressed the button! Oh well – using the stairs to retrieve it is a way of walking off those big breakfasts!!
Good luck Britannia Hotels!! Oh - another thing - most Britannia Hotels are "pet friendly" - and we were quite delighted to chat to several dogs (and their owners) who were staying at the Clifton. How nice to holiday with your pet like this!!
I loved my stay in Scarborough - but have to admit - Scarborough, Qld, Australia is still my favourite!!
No rush this morning – and how odd it felt not having to head off on the bike – well – not in the normal manner!! Immediately after breakfast, we walked Finn down to Richardson Cycles to try and be the first customer of the day!!
What great people – I explained what was wrong with Finn and the young bike mechanic’s expert eyes had already spotted some fraying of a cable and said he felt sure this would be the issue. Debbie Richardson recognising what I was doing and my need to continue tomorrow moved Finn to the front of the queue and said they would attend to it as soon as possible and would ring me when it was done.
We wandered the main street of Scarborough and purchased “Scarborough Rock” a suggestion made by biking buddy Linda Clark prior to the journey. I was fascinated – I hadn’t known anything like this in my youth and the way the name went right through the lolly was fascinating. Having a sweet tooth – of course I bought a couple to try!!
Coffee time had arrived – a woman sitting outside the café we chose was puppy-walking a German Shepherd for UK Guide Dogs – so we sat nearby and compared Guide Dog notes. The young dog was doing very well, and the handler was very firm with the many people who come along wanting to touch the dog, saying that he was learning to work and he wasn’t to be disturbed. Same issues world over!!
Waiting for my coffee to cool and Richardsons Cycles rang – Finn had responded to treatment and was all better!! How good was that!! Super quick I thought. I headed back to the bike shop (fortunately I had got my coffee in a take-out container) while Pauline and Pat went back to the Hotel to play musical cars again.
The young lad at Richardsons showed me “the evidence” and said that it was on the brink of quite an expensive repair had I continued on further. They discounted the original price which I thought was very fair anyway – and I have donated the equivalent discount to The Fred Hollows Foundation. A huge THANK-YOU guys. So glad this happened where it did and not miles from anywhere in the Scottish Highlands!!
Shame I wasn’t staying longer – the shop rides that you have (almost every day of the week) looked really interesting and I would have loved to joined one.
I “test” rode Finn back to the Hotel – without bike helmet – completely legal here – but wow did I feel uneasy and vulnerable!! Finn felt like new again tho – so relieved!!
Next stop was at the Scarborough Bowls Club for Pat to get to know her new Taylor Bowls better. She had been itching to play some more but with the weather, and other factors we hadn't managed to! No excuses here - an indoor, all-weather surface!! We had also noticed the previous day that they had a good restaurant and free WIFI – so I opted to go sit there, watch the bowls and see if I could catch up with FB a bit.
Pat found the indoor greens great and they rolled a lot more like an outdoor rink at home. Her bowls were much more accurate after the first couple of ends. The Ladies President came along and made herself known, and quite a few of the people sitting at the “rink-side dining” made comments about Pat’s shiny new plum coloured Taylor Bowls. Without the influence of “the elements” wind, sun, shade this indoor stuff is very constant and Pat felt with a bit of practice you could get pretty accurate playing on this surface.
The food smelt good – so at the end of her roll up we had a yummy bowl of soup, while we watched the start of the afternoon League players mixed fours competition. We decided to take a drive in to see the sights of this large holiday town – this would also satisfy the requirements of our “parking disc”.
Our hotel was perched some 70 metres above North Bay – the more peaceful end of Scarborough with a lovely wide open beach. We drove down to the beachside and around the rocky promontory (which has the castle ruins on high above) to the more popular South Bay. Here there is more of a harbour and the hustle and bustle of amusement arcades, cafes, more hotels and the “old town” which we hadn’t walked as far as in the morning.
I had also noticed when I was almost at our hotel the previous day Peasholm Park (the dolphin monument is outside this), an oriental themed park which houses many attractions including a model steam train. It also is home to an open air theatre. This closed in 1986 with James Last and his orchestra performing the final gig. However, it re-opened in 2010 with Jose Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa being the first to perform there!
The wind was pretty cold and showers were blowing through so we didn’t do a lot of walking around. We drove up to the 11th century Scarborough Castle ruins. Apparently this was heavily bombed by German warships in the first world war. It was a fascinating place to wander around and would have been much more fun if the weather was warmer.
We returned the reverse of the way we had come to stop beside a “big man” we had seen on the waterfront. This turned out to be Fred Gilroy – “Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers” is a giant steel structure made by Ray Lonsdale an artist fabricator and sculptor and is now on permanent display thanks to the generosity of a local Scarborough resident. The sculpture is based on a retired miner Ray became friends with who turned out to also be one of the first soldiers to leave the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of World War II. This piece of art is not just about Freddie Gilroy but represents all the normal people that were pulled out of an ordinary life and forced into a very extraordinary and dangerous one during the World Wars.
I enjoyed this brief tour of Scarborough, and I have loved that my ride came this way and I now know what Scarborough is like. With all due respect to the place, it is certainly past its “hay-day”. I know from various people my age that I have spoken to from England – it was where they went every holidays – and I am sure a lot of fun times were had here. It seems to me, that with the onset of cheap airfares etc – most young people would holiday abroad in Europe and Scarborough is now for the casual sight-seer (the category I class myself as) or, the more senior citizens of the community who have come here for a couple of weeks a year for the last gawd-only knows how many years!!
This was clearly in evidence at the hotel we were staying in. It was lovely to sit in the downstairs lounge – not only because it was the only area you could get WIFI, but also to listen and chat to other guests. I asked one gentleman who seemed to know a lot about the area where he had come from – he quite proudly puffed out his chest and said – “I’ve come all the way from Scunthorpe” – which his wife and he had done by train – and had done so for many a year!! I was unaware of the location of Scunthorpe – but in my ride the next day I saw a sign saying we were only 8 miles from it. So this couple’s annual adventure was only 100 kms from where they lived! They were not on their own – several seemed to be like this.
A bit about the hotel we stayed in – the Clifton Hotel, Queen’s Parade, Scarborough, stands on the North Bay cliff tops and was home to soldiers on home duty during both World War I and World War II. The location of the building offers commanding views of the North Sea. In its hey-day I would imagine a very grand place with lovely lounges, bar and dining room on the bottom floor. However, I have read that in the early 2000’s it was totally neglected and became quite an eye-sore. The current owners the Britannia Group have set about doing the place up. The amount of upkeep on old buildings like this is enormous, and it would cost a pretty penny to restore to its former glory I would imagine. However, after delving deeper on the internet they have made incredible progress – with even more to go. I would imagine the rates were very reasonable when we were there as not all rooms were in use with several currently being re-decorated. I must admit, I found the old style lift very quaint and appealing – except when people failed to close the “grill-style” door and it would refuse to budge from its destination no matter how many times you pressed the button! Oh well – using the stairs to retrieve it is a way of walking off those big breakfasts!!
Good luck Britannia Hotels!! Oh - another thing - most Britannia Hotels are "pet friendly" - and we were quite delighted to chat to several dogs (and their owners) who were staying at the Clifton. How nice to holiday with your pet like this!!
I loved my stay in Scarborough - but have to admit - Scarborough, Qld, Australia is still my favourite!!
