Great new word from the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Coddiwomple. It means “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.”

I coddiwomple through life, especially when I travel. I tend to be very business-like and organized, but I am often a little (or sometimes a lot) vague on exactly what I want to accomplish. I’ve become more comfortable with it as time goes on, might as well not stress on my own goals when I keep getting hit with sudden needs to spend hours collecting documents for Grandma’s VA and DSHS reviews or take Dad to the doctor, etc.

When traveling I like to get out and be where I am and that often means hustling myself ready and getting out, then deciding which direction to head. Usually I make a list of possibilities for each location so I can adjust for weather, transportation snafus or just feeling a bit lazy.

On our recent trip to England we took a couple of day trips to places chosen because they were the end of the line for train rides. One of these was to Whitby. We were staying in York to get to the Esk Valley line we had to change twice, in Darlington and Middlesbrough, which meant planning well since the Esk Valley line only has a couple of runs a day.

The Esk Valley line is a small, two car train, more like a tram. It runs from Middlesbrough through the North York Moors National Park to the coastal town of Whitby.

Darlington Train Station

Middlesbrough Train Station

North York scenery.

North York scenery.

North York scenery.

We didn’t know what to expect, but learned that Whitby is basically a tourist trap. Very picturesque and very crowded on one of Yorkshires hottest days. You have about 4 hours to explore if you aren’t going to ride the same train back that you came on.

Crab(?) traps.

Chimney pots and sea cliffs.

Inner harbor.

Breakwater.

Gravestones at the church on the hill.

Chimney with gulls.

We were not there alone!

Breakwater.

View standing beside Captain Cook, across to the Abbey ruins.

Whitby is Captain Cook’s home port.

We sat on the opposite side of the train going and saw a bit more of the river than we had on the trip out.

Esk River

Esk River

North Yorkshire scenery.

North Yorkshire scenery.

It was a nice coddiwomple in many ways. We both enjoy train travel and the scenery was lovely. Whitby is a charming town.

Even my careful planning couldn’t cover everything: the day we had for the trip was exceptionally hot for Yorkshire so a lot of people were headed out for a day at the coast, including a very large school group. The kids were well behaved, and the adults had the outing well organized, but the kids were, understandably, excited and chatty and the train was very crowded. They were also on the train coming back, again well behaved, but excited and even more chatty from a day of sun and sea and sugary treats. The silence when they got off was welcome.

Advice for if you ever get the chance to take this trip: on weekdays, even if there are no school groups, the train back is used by students of the local schools on their way home so it is normally more crowded than the one going out.