D24: BOGGLE HOLE to SCARBOROUGH
Monday 25th March 2019
Today miles: 15.2 Total miles: 331.0
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After a good nights sleep I crept down on tiptoes to the youth hostel kitchen and made us some bacon butties for breakfast. Gemma joined me twenty minutes later and we enjoyed our butties, me with a large latte and Gemma with her usual morning refreshment of a pot of tea. I then left Gemma to finish her tea whilst I carried our overnight bags back to the car. We left Boggle Hole before 9am and climbed out of the ravine aided by more wooden steps and back onto the cliffs towards Stoupe Bank Farm. I could see the impressive Raven Hall Hotel perched on the cliffs at Ravenscar. 
I had hoped to pop into the hotel for a hot drink and to admire the views but it’s still relatively early and neither of us wants to stop again this early on in the day. The area around Ravenscar is really nice and if the cold wind hadn’t been blowing we’d have probably stopped here for an extended break. I imagine it’s a busy place in the hot summer months. We stuck closely to the coastline for the next 3 1/2 miles, the area was flat and the walking was easy on soft (not muddy) ground. We had been walking for almost 2 hours so we started looking for somewhere to sit for 5 minutes, there are lots of wooden seats spaced out along this part of the coastline but each one we passed was in an area of high wind and so we just walked by. 
On reaching a high point at Petard Point we did find a nice comfortable, windless sun trap and we sat for a while. I saw two other people ahead of us walking along the same path. I knew from my planning that there’s a hotel approximately 1/2 hour away and I mentioned this to Gemma. The ‘Hayburn Wyke Inn’ is located only a few hundred metres off the coastal path and was seemed well worth the short diversion. There were lots of tracks running through the woods at Hayburn Wyke and it needed some careful navigation to get through the trees. On reaching the Inn we met several other walkers, including the couple I had seen in the distance earlier near Petard Point. It was nice to sit and have another hot drink, the sun was now shining and the wind had finally died down.
The hot drink and some sugary snacks had clearly worked wonders on Gemma as she jumped up sooner then expected and surprised me by suggesting we carried on. Gemma enjoys her rest periods and I was gobsmacked by her eagerness to move on so quickly.
The first field we encountered after our refreshment had a large sign ‘Beware of the Bull’ Gemma suddenly didn’t seem so keen to carry on and she gave me that sideways glance which says I bloody well hope not. After rejoining the Cleveland Way we continued along this excellent path for another hour. There were lots more small ravines to cross which meant plenty of Gemma grumbling.
I knew we were getting close to a large town or city as the number of walkers encountered increased massively, this included a large class of about 40 school children. I laughed as I overheard the complaints of a smaller sub group of 10-11 year old girls, dragging their feet at the tail end of the class. We had another short break at Long Nab before heading into Scarborough. I was still feeling fairly fresh and energised but I could see that Gemma was suffering, she didn’t say anything but had slowed down noticeably. Shortly after Scalby Mills we took to the road intending to walk around the remains of the ruined chapel and castle. I offered Gemma the chance of a short cut to the bus station but bless her she didn’t want to disrupt my planned route and soldiered on despite her clear discomfort. I enjoyed the next hour as both the scenery to my left and my right was fantastic. Shortly before reaching the St Nicholas cliff funicular railway (the first in the UK incidentally) we left the coast and headed into the town centre. We reached the bus station having just missed a bus, this meant waiting almost an hour for the next one. When the X93 finally arrived we took our seats and sat enjoying our subway sandwiches and takeaway coffee. We arrived back to the car at Boggle Hole around 5pm after a great day out. I’m now looking forward to carrying on South beyond Scarborough. I’ve got a week off from work at the end of April and plan to spend 5 days walking along the coast racking up 100 miles onwards towards Hull.
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Werewolfandflump UK Coast Path 