Hull * Ilkley Moor * Scarborough

I’ve been on a few day trips recently, and I’ve been looking forward to sharing them. Day trips are so short, so it’s tough to get a full blog post on each trip, so I shmooshed (Daniella word) them all together. I loved it when I walked around Rother Valley, and I wanted to fit in a few more trips before I leave. It’s too easy to get around here with the train that’s able to go everywhere. Depending on where you go, it can be pretty cheap too. It’s so expensive to travel within Canada, and it’s so vast that day trips aren’t always ideal. It’s been so great to take advantage of the ease of travel here. Day trips are a great way to break up the week if you’re in school. When you go in the middle of the week, it’s not as busy either! I went to Hull, Ilkley Moor, and Scarborough, and they were all widely different trips.

Hull

The reason for going to Hull was for The Deep Aquarium there. It is a huge building, and it flows really well. I’ve been to so many museums where you don’t know where you’re supposed to go or what the order of the rooms is. The Deep was perfect. They had some awesome animals there. They did have a wall of skeletons from ancient fish which scared me because I’m terrified of skeletons in museums. They also have a room about the extreme deep parts of the ocean where the creepy fish live, and it was, well, creepy! There’s an elevator that goes through the major tank, but we took the stairs which has viewing windows at every floor, so it’s the same effect. We didn’t spend much time around Hull itself, but it’s a rather quaint waterside town. They had some major construction going on in the city centre, but I’m sure it will be beautiful when it’s done.

Ilkley Moor

If you’re into hiking, I would definitely suggest going to Ilkley Moor. Similar to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, this is a pretty hilly hike. It was another struggle, but I made it to the top once again! The weird part is that you walk up a hill from town to get to the bottom of the hill and then you walk up the hill! Needless to say, it was exhausting. On top of that, Matt wanted to go to a particular pub, and we ended up walking down the hill and then back up to get to the pub!

The walk back up to the pub was so worth it just for the pints we had! It’s called The Cow and Calf, and it’s set right in the hills. It’s a classy place, but it’s considered a “walker’s pub,” so people expect you to come in all wind swept and sweaty. But I mean, check out that view from the window.

Scarborough

The only place I actually requested was to go to the seaside. Matt chose Scarborough, and it was wonderful. It wasn’t a particularly sunny day, but it wasn’t raining. We did a big walk to a different beach where the aquarium was. For the record, this is the day I got the bad chaffing blisters that I mentioned in my lessons learned. Other than that, the seaside was beautiful. We stopped to have a “greasy chip butty” which is a Yorkshire tradition.

Once we got to the beach, we found Sea Life, so we decided to check it out. The tickets were pricey, but I say it’s worth it. We didn’t plan to go originally, but order your tickets online to save a few pounds. Anyway, this was amazing. They had so much to see with talks or feedings every half hour. We spent about three and a half hours walking around and getting to the talks. We saw about four different ones. Sea Life is all about preservation of animals, so their talks are dedicated to what we do that impacts the animals and how to avoid that. It was eye-opening.

My favourite part of the day was mini-golf. The Sea Life ticket included a round of mini-golf on their pirate adventure course, and we ended up playing another round. The decorations were elaborate, and it was really fun. I love mini-golf even though I’m horrible at it. Although, I did beat Matt the second time around. After this, we played around in an arcade/casino place, and it was goofy, silly fun. We had some fresh fish and chips and made our way back to the train station. It was another long and wonderful day.

I’ve been inspired by my own travels. I want to do a few more day trips in Canada. Beach days are always fun in the summer, and it’s great to get a group of people together to do it. We’ll see what I can pull together. What’s the best day trip you’ve done?

-Daniella