OS Explorer map 301, Scarborough, Bridlington & Flamborough Head – I do not own this map, and had not visited it before starting this blog. Visited for this post 22nd September 2022.
Google Maps location links: Bridlington, Flamborough Head, Scarborough
I visited this map area as part of my All Line Rover trip in September 2022, travelling around Britain by train, for which I did day-by-day blog posts already, and am now going through doing my regular posts about the new map areas I visited. The main content below will therefore be just a lightly edited version of relevant parts from my post about Day 7 of the trip (and the very end of Day 6) – for a more connected narrative I recommend taking a look there instead.
I arrived in Bridlington in the evening after a busy day that’d taken me from Edinburgh through the Scottish Borders, Berwick-upon-Tweed, York and Hull. Getting there, I admired the overflowing floral displays in the station ticket hall, before heading straight to my hotel room for the night, leaving exploring town for the morning.
The next day, I wasn’t planning to cover a huge distance, and instead would be making my way up the Yorkshire coast on several slower train and bus services. From Bridlington, I planned to travel to Scarborough, Whitby, and Middlesbrough before stopping for the night somewhere in the Teesside area.
I started out my day with a quick wander around Bridlington – it’d been getting dark by the time I arrived – which was pleasant enough, a smallish seaside town with the usual combination of chip shops, beach, functional fishery bits, small hotels and the like. Following that though, rather than getting straight on the train up to Scarborough, I caught the #14 bus a few miles northwest to North Landing, for a walk around Flamborough Head – I’d been trying to fit in a good few nice walks on the trip, and the somewhat more relaxed travel itinerary for today meant I had some time this morning.
Flamborough head forms a very noticeable eastwards-pointing cusp on the map of Yorkshire, and had been on my list to visit for a while. It didn’t disappoint! My walk was along dramatic white clifftops the whole way around the head. The cliffs were dotted with little caves – I didn’t make the effort to go down to beach level to go inside any of them, but still, they were cool to see!
It’s apparently rather a seabird hotspot too, and Mother Dearest would be pleased to know that in summer there are puffins to be seen – she’s wanted to see puffins for years, but has somehow never managed to catch them!
After a cloudy start, the sun turned up shortly into my walk, which was nice, and after a mile or two I rounded Flamborough Head itself and was walking southwest, back towards Bridlington, which I could see in the distance. I ended my walk in Flamborough village, getting the same #14 bus back into Bridlington.
Back in Bridlington, I went into a corner shop in search of a snack and encountered something I’d never seen before – they had chocolate-flavoured slushies! I’m used to slushies being fruity or cola-flavoured only and kind of translucent, having a milk-based one just seems kind of out of place, like a milky fizzy drink. But I got one, and it was actually very pleasant, like an iced chocolate milkshake I suppose. I am a fan of the southeast Asian version of iced hot drinks, where an iced tea / coffee / chocolate / Horlicks etc. means a hot drink but with ice cubes in, so that what temperature you get depends on which bit of the cup you point your straw at.
After hurriedly picking up my bag from the pub I’d stayed in the previous night – I’d left it in a back room at the direction of the cleaner who’d been the only one around at the early hour I’d left for my walk – I headed back to the station to catch my first train of the day up to Scarborough.
I have to say, I really liked Scarborough! It has a lot going on at once. From the station I first emerged into a long, bustling, lively high street, I assume filled mostly with local-ish people out for some shopping, which just felt alive in a way a lot of town centres don’t – and it wasn’t even the weekend!
From the high street, you have to descend some steep paths (or take the cliff railway) to get down to the sea, where I found my second classic English holiday town seafront of rhe day, with chippies and so on facing the wide beach. Looking northwards, you see up to Scarborough Castle, while to the south the giant Victorian spa hotels dominate the clifftops as the beach continues below.
After a wander down at sea level, I climbed back to the town centre and found the Market Hall, which was great – there were lots of interesting little shops down in the atmospheric vaults below, and then the wide, open, galleried main hall with vendors all around and a big eating area at the back.
I settled down in the market hall for lunch, ordering a very reasonably-priced veggie lasagne and onion rings, not realising until it arrived that the lasagne already came with garlic bread and chips, resulting in my enjoying a quadruple-carb lunch!
After lunch, I went and lay around in the pleasingly 3-dimensional Valley Park– the park is formed by the steep banks of a valley with a road running down the middle, while another road runs across the valley on a high viaduct – for a little while, waiting until I got on the next X93 bus to take me on out of this map area, to Whitby!
Visiting all the maps! 
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