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

The North York Moors

A loop from York: the Minster and the walls, steam across the North York Moors, Whitby's abbey on the cliff, Rievaulx and Fountains, then Malham Cove, the Strid and the falls of Wensleydale in the Dales.

Yorkshire: The Moors, the Coast and the Dales

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

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

Stargaze from the Dark Sky Discovery Site in Dalby Forest

Stand on the rim of the Hole of Horcum after dark

Walk a forest trail from the Dalby visitor centre by day

The North York Moors became an International Dark Sky Reserve in December 2020, and Dalby Forest lies at the centre of it, with the least light from the towns. It was made a Dark Sky Discovery Site of the Milky Way class in 2013, and the observatories in the forest run stargazing nights. North of the forest, the Hole of Horcum is a great bowl in the moor above Levisham.

Dalby Forest: The Dark Heart of the North York Moors

Board the North Yorkshire Moors Railway at Pickering for the 18 miles to Grosmont

Climb the motte of Pickering Castle, built in 1069–70 and rebuilt in stone between 1180 and 1236

Find the medieval wall paintings in Pickering parish church

Pickering is a market town on the southern edge of the North York Moors, and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway starts here, running 18 miles of preserved line across the moor to Grosmont, largely on the Whitby and Pickering Railway that George Stephenson planned, opened in 1836. The Normans built the castle in 1069–70 as a timber motte and bailey; it was rebuilt in stone between 1180 and 1236, the shell keep and chapel coming last, and in 1267 Henry III gave the manor, castle and forest to his youngest son, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. The parish church is known for its medieval wall paintings, and Beck Isle Museum is in the town.

Pickering: The Castle and the Moors Railway's Southern End

Walk the headland and the curtain wall of Scarborough Castle

Find Anne Brontë's grave at St Mary's church

Look down on both bays from the castle barbican

Henry II built the stone castle on the headland between Scarborough's two bays, and the town grew round it with charters of 1155 and 1163 that allowed a market on the sands. The castle changed hands seven times in the Civil War and endured two long sieges. Below it the spa water made Scarborough a resort long before the railways, and Anne Brontë, who came for her health, is buried at St Mary's under the castle.

Scarborough: The Castle Headland and Britain's First Seaside Resort

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

See the Amy Johnson collection at Sewerby Hall

Walk the sands under the cliffs towards Flamborough

Sewerby Hall stands on the cliff above Bridlington with a room for Amy Johnson, the Hull aviator who flew solo to Australia in 1930 and opened the park in 1936. Bridlington below has the harbour, the shellfish stalls and the sands, and Burton Agnes Hall, built between 1601 and 1610 and still with its early 17th-century plaster ceilings and carved woodwork, is a few miles inland.

Bridlington and Sewerby: Amy Johnson's Coast

See Adelina Patti's castle, now a hotel, from the country park

Walk up the valley to the show caves at Dan yr Ogof

The soprano Adelina Patti bought Craig y Nos in 1878 and built a private theatre inside it, with an auditorium floor that could be raised level to turn it into a ballroom. The country park around it runs along the Tawe under the Beacons, and the Dan yr Ogof caves are just up the valley road.