The rest of our August Yorkshire Trip

Was all a bit squished together like this:

I left out Norngirl getting stung by a wasp or the ref ruining the game at Elland Road but there was certainly a drink or two and a railway museum, a bit of York, Leeds and Lotherton Hall.

The Five Rise Locks in Bingley

Bingley in West Yorkshire isn't the biggest or most exciting town in the UK, but nor does it try to be, that isn't it's claim to fame or charm. One thing it has that surpasses most other towns of it's size - apart from it's handy location along the River Aire and the view of the Aire Valley - is it's staircase locks along the Leeds Liverpool Canal. Per wikipedia, the steepest flight of locks in the UK.

Back in August we visited my family and during the trip headed up to Bingley. Whilst there we had a wander along the canal up along the Five Rise Locks and back into the valley again. Here are a few photos from our walk that day including some of the local non-human inhabitants:

If this photo looking into the canal looks odd it's because it's upside down.

The ducks liked the bread we brought them:

The Five Rise Locks themselves we rather impressive as locks go.

Barges lined the canal at the top of the locks.

And the view of Bingley was like stepping back in time (excluding the telephone lines) even though a lot of this part of town is refurbished from the original mills or just built onto the old in the same style.

The local livestock were quite friendly with one another...

This resident cat took a curiosity in my camera and got a stroke for it's portrait.

A little bit more of Yorkshire

A whistle stop day trip (though 200 miles +) around the East Coast of Yorkshire in photo form, from Sutton Hill to Scarborough and on to Spurn Point, all from a week last Saturday but better late than never... which is still the plan for posts about our wedding last year and our honeymoon too... I will get around to it sometime soon, even if its just a photo post... like this one :)

An hour or so into the ride and my dad had us to Sutton Bank, we were looking for the car park nearest the vantage point and ended up climbing the hill, driving back down the hill then up the hill again. Not an easy feat given the hill is closed to large vehicles due to its steep and windy incline. It was worth it though as the panoramic view was pretty picturesque.

A while later we landed in Scarborough and my dad and I headed to the Castle and as you can tell I liked to take photos in and around it. The audio tour was pretty nifty too, it added a lot to the walk around the headland, stories of times gone by and explanations of why there were big bits missing from meter thick stone walls.

After a ride down the front and a fridge magnet later it was on to Bridlington, home of many childhood memories but this time, filled with a ride on the waltzers and some close encounters of the bird kind.

We then made the short journey back up the coast to Flamborough Head to have a look at the lighthouse and whimp out of the walk down to the cliffs. Time as you can imagine was getting on by now, yes, that shall be our excuse!

When we got going again it was to visit Hornsea but we didn't stay long, we spent almost as long staring at the wind farm on the road to Spurn Point.

And Spurn or Spurn Point or Spurn Head was where we made it to next. Formed by longshore drift depositing bits of the cliffs we saw earlier its quite a sight. Though a bit of a bird watchers paradise, we were more intrigued by being able to see the sea on either side of the road and having a paddle. It is certainly a sight of natural beauty even with the use as a lifeboat station and the heavy shipping passing by. Despite all that it is quite a tranquil place.

The sun was starting to dip beyond Hull so we made tracks and not just in the sand blowing over the road. We had made it to the Humber Bridge just before sunset and £2.70 paid to one of the people in the toll booths and we were zipping over the 2km+ stretch of water 100ft in the air.

From the Humber Bridge we drove off into the sunset through North Lincolnshire, cut a corner of South Yorkshire and back to the early night in West Yorkshire where some fresh water to wash the sand from our feet awaited us.