From the East Coast of Yorkshire to the South Pacific

I was out on a walk in the countryside yesterday, over at Robin Hood's Bay. The pictures on the village website have somehow managed to make the village look quite flat. This is odd as I distinctly remember the place having a really steep long hill which a large part of the village was on. Never trust a photograph...

Quite a pleasant walk, the rain held off, and we only hit a few snags. After a couple of miles we came to a farm. The book that was guiding us around the paths of North Yorkshire indicated that we should go through the farm. Our eyes indicated that this would not be possible. Unless we actually went inside and through the farmhouse ("Hello Mrs Farmer! Yes, thank you, we'd love a glass of homemade ginger beer!"), or climbed over a digger that was thoroughly blocking the only other possible egress. Hmmm, what to do... Luckily a farmhand appeared and gestured to us, in his own yokel fashion, that we should climb over the digger. What fun. So then onwards.

The other main danger was the countryside itself. The clifftop walk is falling slowly but steadily into the sea. Not with us on it (this time at least), but there were a few bits where the landslips had been obviously fairly recent. We survived. Which suited me as plummeting 80m to my splatty death on jagged rocks is not my idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon. I don't recall Lou Reed singing "It's such a perfect day, I'm glad I fell to my doom". On a (vaguely) related topic, I was reading today about the origins of bungee jumping. Apparently it originated on Pentecost Island in the South Pacific. The natives there used to find a big tree, strip the surrounding area, and till the soil below the tree until it was all soft. The menfolk (isn't it always the men that do this sort of thing?) would then, as part of some kind of rite or ritual, climb one by one to the top of the tree, tie vines to their ankles, make a speech, and jump off, headfirst. Note that they were diving onto what was effectively the floor, rather than a wussy river or lake as people tend to do today. Most of the time they survived.

The reason why they do this? Apprently several thousand years ago, a man there had been beating his wife, and she ran away. Sensible girl. She ran into the forest, but the man chased her, presumbaly because he hadn't quite finished his beating. She climbed a tree to get away, but the husband followed, so in desperation, she tied vines to her ankles and jumped off. The husband followed but neglected to use vines. She survived, he didn't. So now the men practice jumping off trees with vines attached to them, so that should they have occasion to beat a wife all the way up a tree in future, they'll not make the same mistake as their ancestor. A lesson for us all there.

So then onwards to Whitby (that's me travelling onwards, not the inhabitants of Pentecost Island. I've finished that little story now) for Fish and Chips. I think we may have eaten in Whitby's top nitespot. Really. The party hadn't really kicked off yet (or indeed started), but the food was certainly better than expected given the quality of the venue. I think I shall not visit in the evening though. It looked grim.