Hike the Cleveland Way along the cliffs from Saltburn towards Staithes

Ride Saltburn's water-balanced cliff lift of 1884 down from the cliff top to the pier of 1869 (March to October)

See Boulby's cliffs, the highest on the east coast of England, and Staithes, where Captain Cook worked in a shop in 1745

The Cleveland Way runs along the cliffs from Saltburn towards Whitby. Saltburn still has its water-balanced cliff lift of 1884, running from March to October, and the path passes Boulby, the highest cliff on the east coast of England, and drops into Staithes, where James Cook worked in a shop before going to sea at Whitby.

The Cleveland Way: Saltburn, Boulby and Staithes

Climb Roseberry Topping and look at the cliff left by the collapse of 1912

Pick out Captain Cook's Monument on Easby Moor from the summit

Go through the Captain Cook Schoolroom Museum in Great Ayton

Walk up to Captain Cook's Monument on Easby Moor

Roseberry Topping, 320m, has a half-cone summit with a jagged cliff that has been compared with the Matterhorn. Until 1912 it was a sugarloaf; then a geological fault, and possibly the alum and ironstone mining beneath it, made the summit collapse. James Cook grew up below it in Great Ayton and went to the school there, now the Captain Cook Schoolroom Museum, and on Easby Moor a 60ft monument put up in 1827 by Robert Campion, a Whitby banker, remembers him. From Roseberry you can see it.

Roseberry Topping and Great Ayton: Captain Cook's Country

See the Tees Transporter Bridge from the riverside, opened in 1911 and the longest surviving transporter bridge in the world

See the exhibitions at mima, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, opened in 2007

Visit the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Stewart Park, Marton

The Tees Transporter Bridge, opened in 1911 and about 260m long, is the longest surviving transporter bridge in the world; its gondola has not crossed since the bridge closed for safety reasons in 2019. In the town, the Dorman Museum stands in Albert Park and mima, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, opened in 2007; at Marton, the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum stands in Stewart Park.

Middlesbrough: The Transporter Bridge and Captain Cook's Birthplace

Visit Royal Navy Museums: Hartlepool and board HMS Trincomalee, launched in Bombay in 1817 and the oldest warship still afloat in Britain

See the Heugh Battery on the Headland, whose guns returned fire on the German warships that bombarded Hartlepool on 16 December 1914

Walk the Headland, the old town of Hartlepool

HMS Trincomalee, launched in Bombay in 1817, is the oldest warship still afloat in Britain, and is the centrepiece of Royal Navy Museums: Hartlepool, on the quayside at Jackson Dock. On 16 December 1914 German warships bombarded the town, and the guns of the Heugh Battery on the Headland fired back; the battery is now a museum in the old town.

Hartlepool: HMS Trincomalee and the Heugh Battery

Visit the ruins of Whitby Abbey on the headland, on the site of the monastery where the Synod of Whitby was held in 664 and where Bram Stoker set scenes of Dracula

Climb the 199 steps to St Mary's Church above the harbour

Tour the Captain Cook Memorial Museum on Grape Lane, in the house where Cook lodged as an apprentice

Whitby Abbey stands in ruins on the East Cliff, where the Synod of Whitby met in 664 and where Bram Stoker set scenes of Dracula; 199 steps climb to St Mary's Church beside it. Across the harbour, James Cook lodged as an apprentice in the house on Grape Lane that is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, and the whalebone arch stands on the West Cliff.

Whitby: The Abbey, the 199 Steps and Captain Cook

Arrive at Goathland station by steam train

Walk the Rail Trail to Grosmont on the old 1836 line

Find the Heartbeat locations around the village green

Goathland station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway was used as Hogsmeade in the Harry Potter films, and the village was Aidensfield in Heartbeat. Tenants have grazed black-faced sheep on the greens and the moor here for hundreds of years, and Mallyan Spout falls in the wood below the village.

Goathland: Hogsmeade Station and the Moor

Walk down the village street to the slipway and the shore

Look for fossils and the wave-cut scars on the beach at low tide

Walk the cliff path south towards Ravenscar

Find the laid-out streets of the resort that was never built at Ravenscar

Robin Hood's Bay drops down a single steep street to the sea in a tangle of alleys and yards with a long smuggling history, and it is where walkers finish Wainwright's Coast to Coast by dipping their boots in the North Sea and leaving the pebble they carried from St Bees. South along the cliffs at Ravenscar stands the town that was never built: streets and drains laid out in the 1890s for a resort that nobody came to.

Robin Hood's Bay and Ravenscar: The Smugglers' Coast

Visit St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth, founded in AD 674–5 by Benedict Biscop, one of the two churches of the double monastery that produced Bede

See the dedication stone of 23 April 685 above the chancel arch at St Paul's Church, Jarrow, the monastery's twin on the Tyne

Walk out to the seafront at Roker, north of the mouth of the Wear

Benedict Biscop founded St Peter's at Monkwearmouth in AD 674–5 and a decade later its twin, St Paul's at Jarrow, and the double monastery became a centre of learning that produced Bede. England had no masons, so Benedict brought them from Francia, and glassmakers to glaze the windows — the start of glassmaking on the Wear. St Peter's still stands near the north bank of the Wear, and at Jarrow the dedication stone of 23 April 685 is set above St Paul's chancel arch, one of the oldest church dedication stones in England.