So far I have been to two Whitby Gothic Weekends: 1999 and 2000. Each time, I head up there with Andy and Cat. Always a good jolly, getting the chance to dress up in whatever dodgy gear I can for a full three days. There is also plenty of opportunity to find yet more dodgy gear.
However on this occasion the great challenge was actually getting there. This was a year of great flooding throughout the country and Yorkshire was aprticularly badly hit. I started my journey from Alton to Leeds at about 8am and thanks to the bad weather and the usual resultant bad traffic, I didn't reach Andy and Cat until about 4pm.
Having sampled a small amount of grub with my fellow travellers for the next stage of the journey, we departed, knowing that our favoured route was flooded. Hence we tried to go a little further north along the A1 to make another attempt at crossing. However in the time it took us to get there, there had clearly been some terrible weather and the next route east from the A1 was closed off due to flooding.
As we attempted to go further north, it was becoming dark and we were driving through several inches depth of water. Numerous attempts to cross to whitby were made as we progressed gradually further north and eventually we gave up on the attempt as we reached Middlesborough and its dominating oil refinery. Here we searched the town for somewhere, anywhere to stay the night. Much of the town was flooded and we were takign detours everywhere, but eventually we found a Posthouse at about 2am and rooms. Although after such a stressful journey, we took advantage of the fact that the bar was still open and bought ourselves some pints.
Friday morning, as we checked out of the hotel, there were many others checking in. Mostly families who had been flooded out of their homes. The journey from Middlesborough to Whitby was only short. During the night, the rain had stopped and some of the flooding on the roads had a chance to run off, so the going was relatively easy, but it was sad to see the terrible state of people's homes. As we passed through many villages, we could see people with sand bags and trying to shovel the mud out of their homes.
And after only an hour of driving, maybe less, we were pulling up outside our bed and breakfast lodgings for Whitby 2000.
In the Pavillion
The action at the gothic weekend takes place in the Whitby Pavillion. It was packed with a very large quantity of goth. However, as you might expect, I was there with Andy and Cat. Here is a picture of the two of them on Saturday night. You can click on the image to get the full size version.
However, we did meet a few other folks there. Nicki is one of Cat and Andy's chums from Leeds. She was very fetching in this lovely nurses outfit. And huge apologies go out to Nicki who for some reason I thought was called Lisa. She put me right though, so this page no longer lists her under the wrong name!
And Pete was wearing a very scary rubber outfit.
Wandering up to the abbey
If you head to Whitby, you must wander up to the abbey at the top of the cliff. Very impressive, and the location at which Dracula holes up in the novel by Bram Stoker. And of course you should be able to find plenty of other didgy goth types roaming around up there. Probably trying to emulate Sisters of Mercy album covers in the strong winds that are prevalent there in November.
