Friday, August 23, 2019

Cote De Yorkshire, 3: Captain Cook Memorial Museum

If you travel in the Pacific as we have over the years...western Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia...you know the name of Captain James Cook, whose three voyages in the later 1700s are among the marvels of exploration. Cook was from coastal Yorkshire and apprenticed in Whitby before joining the Royal Navy. At every juncture in his life, he was recognized for his considerable talents, and at every juncture, he chose the more challenging option. Despite his fame, even in his own lifetime, the man is very largely an enigma, and little has come down from his personal life. The museum in Whitby is a good example. Cook apprenticed as a teen under Captain John Walker in Whitby for six years, rising extraordinarily quickly from servant, to seaman, to mate, to master, and was finally offered his own command and the prospect of a life of security and relative comfort, running coal from Newcastle to London. This offer he characteristically turned down, enlisting instead as an ordinary seaman in the Royal Navy, where his rise was similarly meteoric. The museum in Whitby is the Walker house...that is, the house the Walkers lived in some years after Cook had departed. Cook may have seen the house in 1771, during his one return to Whitby after he joined the navy. One sees similar things with a store Cook worked in, the school he attended, the family home on a nearby farm. (He was a son of poor farm laborers). All these have some connection with Cook, but they are not the real things, which 200+ years later, simply no longer exist. But I digress. He is a fascinating if enigmatic character whom we have encountered many times along many ways, and I did not want to miss this principal Cook museum in the area. My visit was augmented by reading Tony Horwitz' excellent Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before. Just before finishing the book, I learned of Horwitz' sudden death on a book tour last May. Journalism and travel writing particularly will be the poorer without him.
A small multi-story edifice, right on the harbor, the home of the John Walker family,
for whom Cook served his 6 year apprenticeship

Some rooms are dressed up as they might have looked in the mid-18th century


Others are stuffed with models, dioramas, letters, portraits, maps, instruments...


A chair from the widow Cook's London home


Cook's death, at the hands of Hawaiians, 1779; his first visit there was
quite successful: he was treated as a god; the second, not so much

Portrait after the first voyage

Although his journals and logs and reports ran to thousands of pages, not that
much is really known of the man's inner workings

Map depicting the three voyages

Captain and Mrs. William Bligh; Bligh was an officer on the third voyage; he
later had his own command, which had its issues, including The Mutiny, the
3600 mile open boat voyage from Tahiti to South America, and subsequent voyages
attempting to bring the bread fruit to the Caribbean to feed England's slaves there;
perhaps no man has suffered more injustice from Hollywood than Bligh...I've read

Model of the Endeavour; all three of Cook's ships were upgraded Whitby colliers;
slow but sturdy

The 4th Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and
prime mover in this age of exploration; one of Cook's main
supporters; Cook named the Sandwich Islands and many
other places for Sandwich; yes, the same Sandwich who
famously asked for some meat between two slices of bread;
no, Hawaii is not Hawaiian for sandwich; it is Hawaiian
for Spam

A good bit of the museum contained items from Joseph Banks, the aristo-fop
botanist that went along on the first voyage, collecting and classifying some
1400 new specimens (not including numerous ladies from Tahiti); in later
years, a respected man of science, founder of Kew Gardens

A bit of an inventor, too

Tools of the 18th century botanist

Linnaeus' taxonomical system was never the same after Cook and Banks

Statue of Cook overlooking Whitby harbor

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Cote De Yorkshire, 2: Whitby

From our days' rest at Scarborough we drove on July 24th to Whitby, a pretty and historic seaside town just a few miles further up the road. The P&R permitted us to visit Whitby leisurely. (Increasingly, British towns are beginning to realize that allowing RVs into P&Rs is good for business, tourism, traffic and parking; we applaud; 'twas not always so). The town has several interests: as an 18th and 19th century ship-building and whaling center, as the center of Cookiana (Captain James Cook, RN; next post), Whitby Abbey, the site of the writing of some of Bram Stoker's Dracula; and more.
Helpful map; the town is on both sides of the river Esk's excellent harbor, mostly the north

Replica of Cook's HMS Endeavor; all three of Cook's South Pacific voyages
were aboard Whitby-built vessels; he learned his seamanship initially in Whitby;
more in the next post; I toured the Cook museum across the harbor

Whitby harbor from the bridge, looking toward the North Sea

Click to enlarge; I thought they were all just sailboats


In addition to whatever else, Whitby is known also for Whitby jet, a kind of semi-
precious stone; Vicki said; and also Whitby gin, which was the 2019 winner of the
national gin-making tournament (see subsequent post on the UK's current gin-craze)

Entrance to Whitby harbor; I am now up on the south bluff, having climbed the
199 steps Vicki's knees needed to avoid

"Get a picture of a tombstone with the name 'Swales,'" she
said; it figures obscurely in Dracula; there were hundreds
of markers; fortunately, Mr. Swales' was among the first
encountered

Interior of Whitby's very interesting double-decker St. Mary's church; nautical
paraphrenalia everywhere

"Get a picture of all the tile-covered roofs in town" she also said

Ruins of Whitby abbey

Attempted artsy-fartsy shot of the distant bluffs

Thus



Radiant wiring scheme

Now on the north bluff, looking back to the church, the abbey, etc.

Thus, including the 199 steps

Whitby was a major whaling center in the 19th century;
mentioned by Melville...

Distant bluffs; it was a warm day, and most of the ice on the beach had melted...

Bram Stoker lived here; see my much earlier learned post,
from Transylvania, for more on Stoker and his beloved
character

And we were there

The Crescent, where Stoker lived

Oboe of my dreams, for a mere 150L; but (fortunately) the shop was closed;
among the charms of touring these little towns are such shops...when open 

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Interim Real-Time Update...

So the blog is at about July 23rd, and, as I post right now, it is August 21st. We are back in Middle California. I think this is about the farthest behind I have ever been. Oh well. I will catch up, eventually, covering the rest of Yorkshire and beyond, two weeks in Scotland, mostly in Edinburgh for the Fringe, our return to the States, and nearly a week in Yosemite with grand-daughter Penelope.
On our hike to Bridalveil Falls in Yosemite National Park, Penelope,
with a back-drop of El Capitan

Monday, August 12, 2019

Cote De Yorkshire, 1

From Patrington we drove on north to Scarborough, on the coast, for a few days' down-time at a Camping and Caravanning Club campground there. Some administrative time, some rest, and also a nice walk along the cliffs north of Scarborough.
Yorkshire is a wonderful place, but it does get hilly here and there...


But we made it and enjoyed a few days off



















The campground was just across the road from a nice walk along the cliffs north
of Scarborough





The remains of Scarborough Castle

A nice Yorkshire sunset