As Britain woke up to it’s first hung parliament for decades on the 7th May 2010, we chose to set off for a two night break at the Slingsby CCC site which is a stone’s throw outside the Castle Howard Estate near Malton in North Yorkshire.
The Slingsby site is just over an hours drive from home and is ideal for just two nights. So having prepared our van the night before, when wifey got home from work just after lunch on the Friday; we set off!
By 4pm we were all pitched up and having a cuppa.
Déjà Vu
The Slingsby CCC site is on the outskirts of the Village of Slingsby which is a pretty little place hat features stone cottages and houses down it’s typically rural North Yorkshire style, wide main street. The site was the first ever one we visited when we first got our caravan back in March 2008 (the photos you see on this page were taken at that time as I forgot our camera on this occasion).
But this time, having travelled around a bit since our first visit, we were a dab hand at pitching up. So no lost tempers and scraped knuckles unlike last time. This time we pitched up on the far side of the ‘bog-block’ that you can see in the photo below.
Walking the Dog
Unlike our first visit to Slingsby, we now have Lucy, our Stafforshire Terrier cross who is now 20 months old and as such are always on the look out for local walks when we choose a site to stay at.
The Slingsby site doesn’t disappont.
There’s quite a few public footpaths close to the site, the main one being directly opposite the main entrance which leads one down a disused railway line which runs for some 2.5 miles, as I found out on the Saturday, to the nearby and attractive, village of Hovingham (again sporting those wide main streets, grass verges and immaculately tended font gardens that are so typical of many North Yorkshire villages).
The Slingsby Club site itself is, we were told, built on an old railway siding which links in with the disused railway line footpath I suppose. 1/4 of a mile in, a plaque by the wayside gave further explanation of the railway which was formally a branch line shut in 1964 by the Beeching Axe.
To the Pub
Saturday night was our last night of this short break. So for some grub and couple of swift-ones we choose to pop in to The Grapes Inn which is on the main street of Slingsby village, about a 5 minute gentle stroll from the site entrance.
A good pub, nice friendly welcome, reasonably priced food and the pints of Guinness and Hobgoblin (on draught, a rare treat) I had were decent pints. The menu was typical pub-grub attire with nothing to get excited about but it was home made and tasty, so no complaints really.
On the whole, a good pub and well worth a revisit when we come back to this site.
WiFi
Before I sign off on this post, it’s worth mentioning for our own reference, that CCC sites that offer WiFi, now provide BT Openzone support. Which means if like us, you have free BT Openzone minutes bundled into your Home broadband account; then you can surf away to your heart’s content without having to splash out on vouchers for the CCC’s own WiFi access or relying upon a temperamental 3G coverage using a dongle.
Good stuff!
That’s if until our next caper.
Que te cuides
Tags: North Yorkshire, Pubs, Slingsby, The Grapes Inn, York
Join us, a 40's something couple from West Yorkshire, our two dogs and a laptop as we delve deeper into the world of touring across Britain with our touring caravan. Follow our musings and caravanning capers in this, our caravanning blog as we review each site visited and take a humourous and sometimes irreverent view of life with a touring caravan.
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