If you like huge sweeping vistas, then you'll love the open moors.
This is the Hole Of Horcum, along the Pickering to Whitby road. There is a large car park for the viewing point there, and it is well worth crossing the road and staring down into this huge hole in the ground. The colours, and the mood changes with the light and the time of year, but it is always spectacular.
The car park always used to be free, but I understand it is now chargeable. The natural amphitheatre was formed by springs eroding the limestone above lower layers of clay.
According to local legend, the hole was excavated either by the Devil, or a giant named Wade, who haunted the Cleveland Hills. As he scooped out the rocks, he hurled them more than a mile to the east, to form the outcrop known as Blakey Topping.
North York Moors Railway
The North Yorkshire Moors Railway operates steam trains along an 18 mile line between the market town of Pickering and the village of Grosmont, and has now been extended further towards Whitby, through the heart of the North York Moors National Park.
If you're lucky, as we were, you'll catch a train hauled by the Sir Nigel Gresley, which was on loan from the National Railway Museum in York. It's a splendid way to travel! The magnificent streamlined A4 Pacific locomotives were designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, so it is appropriate that this one bears his name. It was introduced on east coast express trains in 1935.
It was another A4 Pacific, 'Mallard', that set the world speed record for a steam-hauled train. On 3 July 1938, Mallard raced down Stoke Bank at 126mph to set the record. That record still stands and probably now, always will.
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