Near Filey.

It feels like an age ago, but was probably 2 or 3 months ago, when we went to a caravan park near Filey in a place called Reighton Gap.

You could walk directly from our park to the beach down a steep hill. We were welcomed to the start of the hill by a murder or multiple murders of crows making a right racket. I think they were nesting or at least shouting at each other trying to decide who would get the best girl.

The first day was cloudy and rainy and we walked along the beach to Filey. It was a 3 mile walk (which sounds easy in this runner's mind) but it felt like 30 miles.

Testament to the weather, the beach cafe on the hill down to the beach was closed.

Bempton Cliffs are in the distance here. Apparently puffins live there but we didn't go and look.

One of the surprising things (to us) about this stretch of land is that the cliffs are made of a soft kind of mud, sand duney material (that is an actual word, I don't care that there's a red squiggly line under it) rather than rock, like further up the coast. As a result there is significant erosion and houses are literally falling into the sea. The one below was buttressed up by corrugated iron and scaffolding poles but was clearly fighting a losing battle. Its inhabitants must have long moved out. I spent the walk along the beach thinking about how awful it would be to find yourself in that situation. You can't get insurance for that. You can't sell that house so how can you buy another one? Rent? Sure, but you've lost thousands of pounds. What if the inhabitants rented it? Well someone owns it, so someone's lost (hundreds) of thousands of pounds.

Someone drew a picture of Chewie in the sand. It wasn't us.

Gloomy, innit. But also epic.

Was pleased to find this amazing sculpture by the same artist as the one of the fisherman in Scarborough, just up the coast.

There were lots of bunkers, one every few hundred yards along the beaches down this stretch of coast. Many of them were on their ends. Some were falling down cliffs or on the beach just crumbling apart. I spent some more time thinking gloomy thoughts as I imagined what the people that used these bunkers would have been doing and thinking as they looked out to sea for approaching Germans. (They're WW2 bunkers, right? 🤷)

Scarbs.

This view was infinitely more impressive in real life.

The weather cleared up a few days later and we went in the other direction along the beach where pamplets promised shipwrecks...

Wreck of Laura

Selfie

We took a second trip to Filey on a much nicer day and saw things we hadn't seen the time before.

Filey Brigg in the distance there.

Through rose tinted glasses.

A little walk up the steep hill into the town revealed a lack of any shops of interest but a small and immaculately tended public garden. It was populated by massive seagulls and a lovely cat. There was an aviary full of birds at the back of the garden. The cat sat so still on the grass, sunbathing, he looked like a statue. The seagulls were bigger than him. As I tried to make friends with him, he heard something and dashed off behind the aviary (not at all fussed about the birds) and behind a fence to some houses. His mum or dad had opened the back door and he was nipping back home for tea. We had chips so we were alright.