Wandering Boots Tour: Day 33 To York

By the Numbers

25,316 Steps

18.7 kms

The day had come for my next leg of the journey and that would be to York. I knew it from a TV show about trains that it had the National Train museum and that was all I really knew about the town and I would see a whole lot more when I arrive. It wasn’t a cold morning at all when I got up and headed out for breakfast and then back to grab my gear as I had an early train. Its only an hour from Newcastle, but I wanted to have heaps of time in town as I had a museum to visit, which would leave me something to do until checkin. I think there are things that I should make a start in posting home, but I will wait until I have some cards for that. I keep getting guide books that help me remember and magnets. Those I cannot post unless the posties have changed their tune.

The train was uneventful, but I do wonder about people as I try to get my bag on they seem to want to move closer. If I swing my bag onto my back that will have a swinging battering ram that weighs 20kilos at least that will throw them down. I soon learn the hostel was a touch further from the station than I had predicted. It was around a 15 min walk and I started wondering if my phone was sending me to the right location. I soon found where I was staying and thought it was a nice place and way better than some of the others I had been to. I was able to drop my bag off and head to the train station again with heaps of time before. I soon found there was another shorter way into the station, more of a shortcut that I did not know about. It took me onto a platform that joined the rest of the station, which I had to figure where the museum actually was. I had to take a footbridge to the far end of the station platforms and out.

The museum wasn’t actually very far from the station at all and had at one stage been the train yard workshop area. Once the museum opened, I found entry was free and I was given a timetable with talks the team were giving. One was a steam wheel that had helped haul trains up hills. The next talk was a little about the Bullet train they had, which was one of the O series meaning the first generation of trains. York only got one as they were a rail museum and the country invented railway travel. They couldn’t even bring it from the port along the rails as it was too big for the tunnels and bridges even if it fit the rails. The last mile it was on the line, but delayed other trains using the same line for 6 or so hours after they found a problem that could have impacted the train, but it wasn’t the train.  You could get onto the train and watch a show about the early trains in Japan. The other demonstration they gave was of the turntable which was the original of several that had been in the warehouse. The others were gone, but they kept the bigger one. They showed the electric turntable going round then the last few feet or so they showed what it was like to manually wind the turntable into place. It did look like a bit of work.

The rest of the trains were static and they had information about them including the Mallard, which had the speed record, The Flying Scotsman was out touring so I didn’t get to see that train, but it had been bought by the museum before it could have been scrapped. There were mail carriages that showed you how the posties would do the mail between the big towns like London to Edinburgh including during the winter. They even had one of the underground mail driverless trains that took the tunnels, which is no longer used for the mail, but the postal museum does tours. There were a heap of Engines there that even I had not heard of, well most of them I had not heard of. In another room there was a whole warehouse of items that were not catalogued, but to show the people what items looked like as they were being repaired or restored. I was impressed by the size of the museum as it was like the MOTAT in Auckland. There was a section where they had carriages that were from royalty like Queen Victoria, Queen Anne and King Edward who wanted his like a yacht and with a smoking room. I ended up returning to the hostel well after check in, which was pretty good anyway.

I dropped my stuff into the room and walked off again back into York as I wanted to explore the town. I had come across a walled entrance into the middle of York, where bus’ couldn’t enter so I had a look at the gate as they called it and wondering where the steps ended up, I walked up them. I found I could skirt most of the roads by walking along the wall. I was heading the long way into the middle of the town as I was looking for the grave of Dick Turpin, who was a highwayman. Turpin had been executed in York, but body snatchers had dug him up and got caught with his body. So apparently he was reburied at the site. I found him and then went looking for a tower by the name of Clifford Tower that was part of an old Keep that was used for defence, but no longer used. It was open to the weather and had a steep set of stairs to get to. The funny thing was it was part of my heritage pass, so I went in and looked around before wandering off. I hadn’t known about this place actually. I knew there was a Cold War bunker nearby, but I never got that far. I was running out time as everything was closing and I had missed the Viking stuff as the museum was closing by the time I got to it. The well known area that was a shopping area of narrow streets and apparently the inspiration for Diagon Alley was the Shambles. People had stores selling Harry Potter merchandise with one guy telling people to join Slytherin one of the four houses in Harry Potter. The street was very narrow and I took several other streets and reached York Minster which is the cathedral. The strange thing was I never knew a Roman Emperor was crowned there or mane emperor in York. I thought that only happened in Rome. People were sunning themselves enjoying the nice day unless I have found a good day in York where there is no rain.

You would think after this time I would have headed back. I was getting distracted by all the views that I ended up coming across like parts of Roman wall that I never knew about. The traffic was extremely busy being the end of the day and being a Friday that would be understandable. Could be as York had some really narrow streets, but I have found that with many places in the UK. I ended up following another part of the wall towards the train station. There is quite a bit that had not been knocked down and preserved for the future. Across the road from the station, I found a small cemetery that had the victims of cholera from around 1700s buried there. The things you find when wandering around. By this time I was able to use my new short cut back to the hostel, which cut a huge lot of a walk as I didn’t need to walk all the way round the roads.