Day 10: We drove through the Peaks District on more windy roads through wildly beautiful scenery. Peaks is a overstatement as they really seemed more like foothills to me. Despite that it was very lovely.

We walked partway up Mam Tor and stopped in Castleton to wander.

It was funny to see just how much farm cows creep out Rob and the kids. We made our way down a very cool pass (used to be a circle reef) but it was supper short and had no place to park.

Can you tell we were getting short on clean laundry?? It was funny to see how many people though Cara’s clothes to be very odd.

York is a really cool town. There aren’t too many places in the area that would keep our attention for more than a day but York would.

We walked through The Shambles after all the other tourists left for the day. These are very narrow 1400s medieval cobblestone streets lined with crooked houses and shops. It looks very Rumpelstiltskin-esque.

We overnighted at another YHA hostel family bunk room with en-suite bathroom. It was quite nice and cleaner than any of the Holiday Inn’s we’ve stayed at here.

Day 11: Slow start to the morning as it took 45 min to drive 5 miles through York to breakfast. The luscious 2 eggs Benedict with prosciutto for $6 made up for it!

We tried more tide pooling and again didn’t have much luck. Nate was really looking forward to this activity but there just hasn’t been too much to find even though all my online research said otherwise. We found an eel, a few hermit crabs, and one normal crab but we were definitely hoping for more. Right place, right time of day, but wrong time of year?

The girls didn’t like walking on and crunching all the snails underfoot so we mostly stayed ashore.

I led the family out to the most incredible beach in Seahouses. It was insane. We loved playing here.

We saw little piles of extruded sand all over the beach. They were everywhere along with perfectly round holes. We are guessing they are related to some kind of crab movement. Can anyone tell us exactly??

The moss / seaweed growing on the rocks in this area was nearly luminescent in the light of golden hour.

We hopped from rock to rock and played for a couple hours. We found some flat and nearly transparent fish swimming in the calm water. They resembled a few specks of moving sand. Even after catching a couple we could barely see them swimming in the water.

Another night at a YHA hostel in Alnwick and it’s perfect. More people should try these when traveling in the UK. They’re super clean, affordable, and convenient.

On our way back to Alnwick we happened upon the castle viewpoint. This is actually Hogwarts, minus the CG graphics. They filmed all the outdoor courtyard scenes here. Rob was quite struck but the castle in the lovely light.