Jollies, Day 3: Robin Hood's Bay & Malton

Day 3 saw us leave Whitby and head off to our next home for the night. Before that though, we drove over to the lovely village of Robin Hood's Bay which several people had recommended at work and in the comments on one of my posts.

A different Robin, from the Guest House, recommended we take the path down to the sea wall on the way into the village, so that's what we did. It was quieter and a lot less steep than the main street.

I couldn't resist this cottage and the wall decorated with fishing equipment.

Or the boats on the sand at low tide.

You might have noticed already that the beaches here are very different to the golden stretches of sand at Whitby. This part of the coast is popular for fossil hunting and we saw lots of people searching amongst the rocks. We did have a look ourselves but it probably helps if you know what you're doing! We also spotted a man who was balancing rocks on each other, making them look like sculptures. Very mysterious. I wish now that I'd asked him about it.

Back in the village there were lots of pretty cottages to admire, tucked into the very steep banks.

And glimpses of other buildings up narrow passageways.

More pretty cottages. Love that red door.

And a reminder of the name of the village. I've always been fascinated by the Robin Hood legend, though it might have had something to do with a rather attractive and poetic looking Michael Praed in Robin of Sherwood when I was growing up! I can hear the haunting music of Clannad from the TV series just thinking about it.

After a break for coffee and cake, it was time to climb the steep hill out of the village and back to the car for the next stage of our journey.

For our third night, we were booked into the Talbot Hotel in Malton. The building dates from before 1599 and reopened after being completely refurbished in 2012. It's quite a lot pricier than the places we normally stay but there was a special offer on and I was swayed by the photos of the rooms on the web site. Our room wasn't quite as amazing as one of those rooms but was still lovely, very comfortable and spacious, and the bathroom was huge - I could almost lie down flat in the bath!

We didn't feel the need to make use of the shotgun storage on this occasion! However, we did make use of the lovely drawing room where you could relax on sofas with a cup of tea and a game of scrabble or other board games. That was later though. At this point we had a quick cup of tea and dashed off to make the most of the remainder of the afternoon.

We were headed for Yorkshire Lavender which is only 8 miles from Malton. I'd never heard of it before but had picked up a leaflet in one of the tourist offices and thought it was worth a trip being so close to the hotel. It's in a stunning location looking out over the Vale of York. You can just see the purple haze of the lavender starting to appear - it must be amazing when it's in full bloom.

There are lots of cottage plants on display too.

These caught my eye because they glowed in the sunlight.

We spent an hour or so there wandering through the gardens and the plant nursery and bought a few presents in the gift shop for Mum's birthday in a couple of weeks.

And so to the end of another long day and time to put up my feet for a rest and a spot of Wimbledon before heading out to a nearby restaurant for dinner.

Are you flagging yet? Well, gather up your stamina as, next time, it's the last destination of our holiday and then home :)