Enjoy the North Yorkshire Moors National Park

The UK has fifteen national parks all with their own unique characteristics. The North Yorkshire Moors have amazing big skies, a beautiful coastline and at the right time of year fantastic swathes of purple heather.

We had a day trip around the moors using the Hole of Horcum Treasure Trail to guide us to some of the best bits.

As part of the Trail, we stopped at the Falling Foss waterfall where there is also a handy coffee stop! Another led us past Goathland. Goathland is famous for being featured as Aidensfield in the ITV programme 'Heartbeat' and we had fun posing with the characters and props.

We spent ages at the actual Hole of Horcum chatting to the park rangers about the hole and how it might have come about. I preferred the legends about giants to the more rational explanation of spring-sapping!

The Trail ends at Levisham station which is styled as a 1912 station. Then it was time for a late lunch in a local pub. It was a lovely way to spend a morning exploring without having to do too much walking on a hot day!

Oh and we had plenty of ice-cream opportunities too!

Having seen the moors by car, we were pleased we'd booked a trip on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. We'd also seen the TV programme in March 2018 about the steam train on Channel 5. Apparently, it was so successful they are making more of them.

The whole experience was great fun. We were greeted at the door of our carriage by a smartly dressed lady and shown to our seats. We were in a small compartment with just two other people. They were celebrating a special birthday, we were just indulging ourselves!

The whistle blew and we were off. We were treated to a sumptuous three course meal and some fantastic scenery. Highly recommended!

When we got off at Pickering we enjoyed a wander along the historic 1930s themed platform before rejoining the train to go back to Grosmont. Everyone we met was just so friendly. I can't wait to go back and experience some more of this amazing part of our country.