Just up the A171 is Robin Hood’s Bay, which reader Abigail Ledder says is “probably the most picturesque village on the North Yorkshire coast”. If you know Clovelly, in Devon, imagine a low-fat, sugar-free version: a steep, cobbled maze of stone cottages with red pantiled roofs leading down to a beach and quay that will make you go weak at the knees. I bet you can’t leave without promising yourself a weekend here.

The setting sun casts an eerie glow over the ruined abbey as I drive into Whitby. In the western sky, the clouds are piling up before a trough of low pressure, and down around the harbour of this pretty, unspoilt resort, the first goths are emerging, kohl-eyed, onto the streets.

History oozes from the cracks in Whitby’s pavements – from Jurassic relics to Captain James Cook and the whaling industry from which the town made its money – but the biggest draw these days is Count Dracula. Among the gravestones at St Mary’s church I meet Vince, Alison and Dave, respectively dressed as a 19th-century sea captain, a grieving Victorian widow and, I think, Buttons from Cinderella.

Wearing corpse-like make-up, and fragrant with patchouli and embalming fluid, they’ve come to pay their respects to the fictitious vampire, who arrived in Whitby aboard a vessel crewed by dead men. I ask where they’re going next: to the abbey, perhaps, or some other dark, satanic place, to commune with their fellow ghouls? “Argos,” nods Dave. “Alison needs a new breadmaker.”

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Catch of the day

Chris selects his best food and drink tips from his camper van man tour of the British coast

Beach of the week

Chris selects his favourite beaches from his camper van man tour of the British coast

Rooms with sea views

Chris selects his favourite places to stay on his camper van man tour of the British Coast

• Beach of the week

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• Camper van man's tour of the British coast

I move on, following the advice of reader Simon Ellse, who says I should enjoy the fabulous view of Runswick Bay in the company of a pint of Black Sheep at the bar of the Royal Hotel. The neighbouring town of Staithes is even lovelier – the charming harbourside Cod and Lobster knocks Southwold’s Lord Nelson from top spot in Campervan Man’s “best seaside boozer” chart – but watch out for the angry fat man in the blue Land Rover.

Next morning, as a storm brews in the west, I stop at Skinningrove, curious to see why a tiny, run-down fishing village in the shadow of a steelworks should have generated not one but four letters of recommendation. “Walk 200 yards past the decrepit harbour wall and you’ll find a vast expanse of sand backed by dunes,” writes reader David Willmott. “The steelworks are invisible – this fantastic beach is only for those in the know.” Not any more, Mr Willmott.

Crossing the River Tees at Middles-brough, I follow the Durham Heritage Coast north. The sky is overcast and the tough mining towns along the shore have the sullen air of relations left off the wedding list. After crossing the Tyne, I pause to mourn in Whitley Bay. Not so long ago, this was to Newcastle what Brighton is to London, with notorious nightclubs and a funfair called the Spanish City. Now it’s what Gaza is to Jerusalem, the clubs boarded up, the seafront a litter-strewn no-go zone. But there is little evidence yet of the regeneration scheme promised for the area.

In Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, as I admire Couple, a pair of 16ft figures installed offshore to attract tourism, a former miner, James Handyside, stops to brag about the views. “On a clear day, you can see beyond Newcastle Toon and That Place, all the way to North Yorkshire,” he says. “That Place”, he explains, is the local name for Sunder-land, a town unmentionable since the plague came ashore there “not so long ago”. By which he means 1351.

The pressure is still tumbling as I head north, running ahead of the storm as the rain clouds roll over the Cheviots and the swallows swoop low over the lanes. There are no piers, no funfairs and no promenades along this magnificent stretch of untamed shore, where the vast, windswept beaches and towering dunes are watched over not by sandcastles, but by bastions of black basalt such as Dunstanburgh, Alnwick and the fearsome Bamburgh Castle. If you’ve yet to visit England’s most awesome coastline, do so at your earliest convenience – and leave the flip-flops and that itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny swim-suit behind. Instead, bring wellies, a windcheater and a hip flask, and be prepared to be blown away by the wind as much as the beauty.

Alnmouth, confides reader Carl Bevan, is “a little gem”; and, on first sighting, as you round a bend on the A1068, you drool. Across lush, green fields grazed by grinning Friesians, a huddle of colour-washed houses perches on a ridge between the silvery meanders of the Aln and the golden sands of Alnmouth Bay. A colourful coble bobs on the blue water, a helicopter flies overhead; in the middle distance a train chuffs cheerfully along a looping track; and I suddenly realise I am in Sodor. Those with children will understand, and those without should study the oeuvre of the Rev W Awdry, starting, perhaps, with Thomas the Tank Engine.

Three miles to the north, I’m under orders from reader Lucy Wheen. “Park at Longhoughton and walk the coast via Howick and Craster to Dunstanburgh,” she rules. “It’s the finest coastal walk in the country.” Big words, but she’s not far wrong: a cove, a castle, a cracking good lunch and, to top it all, a Time Team mystery solved.

The most interesting thing about the Blytonesque secret cove at Howick, says a local explorer, Vic Brown, “is something that isn’t there”. He explains: “If you look at it, you realise that a colossal amount of rock has been removed, and that the cove is the remains of an enormous quarry. My hypothesis is the stone forms Dunstanburgh castle, four miles to the north.”

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