Wednesday 16th June 2010: Saltburn and Runswick Bay

With a sunny start to the day we were off and by mid morning had arrived in Saltburn, with the intentions of visiting the Italian Gardens to photograph the flowers. Here is the view from the cliff top before we set off to go the see the flowers.
Hmm! we had been fooled when down in Cornwall into thinking that summer was already here, and we found we were a couple of months too early for a good floral show in these gardens!
But the wild flowers on the hillside were a different matter as you can see here, there were thousands of buttercups in this area alone
It was still a little early for lunch so we drove back to the clifftop to take some photos, and noticed there were several small groups on the beach, possibly either nurseries or schools on outings, it was too far away to tell for sure

The only remaining pier on this section of the east coast had survived another winter and there were even a few visitors having a stroll, though it must be more attractive, surely when the tide is in and you can pretend to be on a ship!
As can be seen here in this high magnification shot Pat had taken there were plenty of surfers out there risking hypothermia for some weird reason, even though the waves were nothing to write home about.
We drove back via Skinningrove as we often do, as we like this view from Boulby hill looking towards Staithes (The village in the distance) it is a very pleasant ride along here.
So down to the lower car park at Runswick and we were lucky enough to find a space, as it was far busier than we had expected.
Here at last there were flowers for Pat to photograph as this village is a real sun trap and there were flowers in abundance all aroung the village gardens
Some of the roses were especially beautiful and Pat had a whale of a time with her new camera. That is until the battery went flat and she realised she had left the spare back in the case which was in the car!
I remember back in the 60's that this place was pretty run down and you could have picked up one of the houses for a song, as the fishermen were leaving. Now you would have to be a millionaire to buy one!
It looks very different to those days when the roofs were all slate covered and in the winter smoke from coal fires hovered over the houses on still days.

Fishing nets and other boating tackle used to lie in these alleyways making them hard to pass down.

There is however still some fishing (largely for crab and lobster) going on in a small way, which is rather nice to see.

Another nice day, from our point of view, so back we went to camp for a lazy evening meal.