Cycling Cloughton to Ravenscar

One of the (many) great things about staying at Cloughton Station, is that – unsurprisingly for a former train station – it’s right on the former Scarborough to Whitby railway line.

The train line opened in 1885 and closed 80 years later. It’s now a peaceful track leading walkers, cyclists and horse-riders on a 21-mile trail never far from the coast through North Yorkshire’s North York Moors National Park.

From Cloughton, it’s just two miles to the Hayburn Wyke pub, a great place to stop for a pint or even a meal, with a big beer garden and a good-sized patch of grass for little legs to run around on.

From the pub, you can take a short walk through a nature reserve and down to ‘smugglers cove’ where a waterfall cascades into the sea. It’s as idyllic as it sounds.

If you can drag yourself away the cycle track goes all the way to Whitby, but we only had time to go as far as Ravenscar (about five miles away). Unfortunately sea mist obscured the usually spectacular view from the Raven Hall Hotel to Robin Hood’s Bay.

It’s a very steady climb all the way to Ravenscar but that does mean you can freewheel nearly all the way back, which we did, laughing and chatting and fooling around like we were kids, a sense of freedom rushing through our bodies like the wind in our hair.

/ cycling selfie! I hate this picture of me, but I love his face :) /

A few great little discoveries in this lovely patch of Yorkshire, don’t you think?