Yorkshire Part 2: Hunting for Count Dracula

Throughout our week in Yorkshire we have had many opportunities to pick up a wide range of caches in the North and South of the county.

And one of the great things about Yorkshire is the large number of earthcaches and virtuals, which are in short supply back home.

I kick of part two of our trip up north with a visit to Runswick Bay. After a bit of fossil hunting I began roaming the new sea defences in order to complete the earthcache, ‘Defending Runswick’. 

Huge boulders had been placed on the beach to protect the softer cliffs at the back of the bay and looked to be doing a very effective job of halting the coastal erosion. 

Next up we visited Whitby with one goal, to hunt for the world’s most famous gothic horror character, Count Dracula. Bram Stoker lived in Whitby and wrote the famous novel there, and it is said that many of the seaside town’s landmarks feature in the book. 

Arriving in Whitby we decided to head straight for Dracula’s lair, Whitby Abbey. Set high up, on top of a hill overlooking the town, only ruins remain, but as we walked around the high stone walls and beautiful arches it was easy to imagine how grand it once was. And the perfect home for the Count.

Sadly there aren’t any caches at the Abbey itself, and we certainly didn’t spot Dracula, what with the sun beaming down and hoards of visitors wandering the grounds cameras in hand. 

Giving up the hunt we set off into the town itself to try our luck there. We soon had our first cache in hand, another earthcache ‘Whitby War Memorial’ which was just a short walk from the car park. 

Next up another smuggler themed cache, hidden in a dark enclosed, narrow alley way, you could almost imagine smugglers darting furtively under the cover of night along the passageway to deliver their contraband wares to the towns drinking establishments.

Then finally, I picked up Dracula’s scent and soon found myself at his bench overlooking the harbour. It was great to sit down and read the plaque on the back of the blue bench. Thanks to a local cacher there is now a virtual there, so I was soon snapping a quick selfie of myself sitting on Bram Stoker’s bench, very pleased that we had almost found Dracula. 

A number of caches and dashes on the way back to our holiday home helped boost our numbers and there was just enough time for a quick stop in Filey.

Filey is small coastal town, in South Yorkshire and we parked up near the seafront. Minutes later I’d picked up a clever little hide at the ornamental fountain. 

A few yards further along we came face to face with a giant! A 12ft high steel sculpture of a fisherman and the location of the first stage of an interesting multi cache. We collected the numbers and made a quick find of another cleverly hidden cache a little further along the promenade. 

The following day the rain finally came so we headed for the city of York and the fantastic national railway museum. Under cover, out of the rain, we began wandering around the huge engine sheds. 

Each was filled with an array of some of the most famous steam engines and carriages in history. These included the private carriages of British Queens...Elizabeth, Victoria and Mary...and the fastest steam train ever to travel the lines of Britain...The Mallard. 

Finishing a lovely visit by making a few holiday gift purchases in the shop, we then went for a walk around the beautiful city of York, collecting a few caches along the way. 

We picked up three great virtuals ‘Holes in the Wall’, ‘Stonegate Devil’ and ‘Constantine the Great’ - the later outside the stunning York Cathedral - plus the earthcaches ‘The Roman Coulmn’ and ‘George Leeman’. But it was the traditional cache ‘Sticklemaze’ that wowed us the most. 

Disguised as an electrical tube on a brick wall, right in the centre of the town, a little pull and a bit of twisting back and forth and the clever micro cache was in hand. Just brilliant, so well disguised, it earned our favourite point of the day.

After a bit more trainspotting on our penultimate day, we set our sights on a walk around the beautiful Dalby Forest. A few years ago the UK annual mega event, Piratemania  had been held at the forest and lots of cache trails placed along the forest tracks at that time.

It was a lovely dry day and the forest was beautiful, trees interspersed by a lake and a river, but sadly many of the caches were long gone. I’d failed to notice when planning our trip just how many DNFs some of the cache pages had, and to our great disappointment we only found one of the six we hunted for and several have since been archived. But it was a lovely walk, and it was nice to visit the forest.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and it was our final day in Yorkshire. The sun was back out and keen to make the most of a beautiful day we headed to Flamborough Head. 

I’d seen many pictures of its stunning coastal landforms during my geography studies, but had never visited. It really is a beautiful place and a geographer’s and geologist’s dream. 

It’s perhaps not surprising that there is a great earthcache on the headland, and as I walked around spotting stacks, stumps, arches and wave cut platforms in the chalky cliffs and beach, I must have snapped at least 100 photos. 

The other half was less excited by it all and retired to the nearby cafe for a drink, whilst I walked on to grab a traditional cache - a nice sized one too. 

As we packed up to head home, we made one final stop in Flamborough at Edge’s House...quite literally. The cache was up the cachers drive, and it was a great little hide. 

Two more caches and dashes at service stations on the way home, helped notch up my UK county cache finds to 24, with one being in Nottinghamshire and the other in Lincolnshire. I really must go and pick up the EPPs challenge cache, which only required finds in 20 counties!

Next week it’s back to work, but it’s not all bad, hopefully it will bring some after work caching opportunities around Cambridge.