Weather: Fine, sunny
intervals, breezy.
Distance:
28 km (17.4 miles) Total Distance: 3102 miles
Some walking days are pretty
non-eventful and this was one of them.
There was nothing wrong with it other than it was non-eventful. It was reasonable weather, the scenery was
good but a little monotonous all long beaches. It is just that nothing much happened and I
didn’t meet any interesting characters.
I was working in Grimsby yesterday and
on Monday so decided to make a weekend of it.
My meeting finished by lunchtime so I had lunch in the canteen and drove
up in the afternoon to Morpeth and was there by teatime. I stayed in the same B&B that we has
stayed in as a family the previous trip though this time I was allocated a room
in the other house, next door but one – a bit confusing! The atmosphere in the second house was
different as it looked full of single rooms and they seemed to have some young
workmen staying. I went to eat in the
local curry house, though was disappointed with the chicken tika byrianni as
it was the reconstituted chicken that is starting to appear in some of the
take-away curries.
I was pretty tired so was asleep by
10.30 and up for breakfast at 7.30 and walking by 9.00. I parked at the north end of Newbiggin and
headed out past the church and caravan site and golf course. I could see the power station and Alcan works
in the distance and kept wondering if I would be able to walk around the
outside or would have to cut inland.
It
worked out that I dropped down onto the beach and was able to just about get
around that way. I don’t quite know what they were doing at the works but it
looked like they were slowly digging up an old landfill site, emptying it onto
the beach and getting the sea to take away all the muddy bits. I’m sure they
wouldn’t do anything as illegal as that but it looked to me that that is what
they were doing!
I
kept to the beach a while longer before coming up onto the road for a short
period at Creswell. I stopped to have a
drink from my bag and phoned home. I had recently bought some virus software
for the PC and was concerned that it was timed to come up automatically today
which would confuse the kids no end if they turned the PC on ad saw that.
North of Creswell I dropped down onto Druride
Bay. I didn’t know whether it would be easier to walk on the road or on the
beach but I made the correct choice as the sand was firm by the waters edge and
it was a huge beach that went on for mile after mile. There was quite a bit of seaweed washed up in
patches and at one stage I was a great starfish with about a dozen fingers
coming off it.
Time for a break at Amble. As I rounded the point after having to come
off the beach only about half a mile before I spotted exactly what I wanted – a
café. I wandered in and it was one of
those places – an example of how not to run a business. Half the tables were covered in clutter, the
walls were nicely adorned with various teapots but when my coffee and scone
arrived it was on that cheap translucent type glass. I had ordered scones with jam and cream. It
arrived, one scone cut in two with cream from and aerosol can. There was also a women in the corner who
burst into laughter whenever anyone moved in and shouted ‘shop’. The real laugh was in the toilet where a sign
above the toilet, obviously written by a friend of theirs in the highways
department of the council warned people it was an electric toilet and on no
account was it to be used – seemingly for anything. The sign was so big one had to stand at the
other end of the room to be able to focus on it!
I walked out over the pier that took a
left hand right angled turn and joined up with the land again. A short walk though the back streets and cut
down by the yacht club got me to the estuary and then the road following the
river up to Warkworth. There was plenty of bird
life on the estuary which was interesting.
Warkworth is a pretty village and as I had plenty of time and energy I decided
to knock some of tomorrows miles off by going down to the beach again and
walking around the peninsular. At the
very tip whilst I was taking a break and having a drink a very elderly couple
appeared off the pier and headed north along the beach. Great to see old
people making the effort to get out.
I hitched for a while in the village
but only half-heartily and then got the bus to Ashington, that seemed to go
around Amble about three times! At Amble
I changed busses and caught one to Newbiggin – no problem at all.
That evening in the B&B I went to
happy hour in the Italian restaurant and
came back to watch George Best, Elton John and David Beckham and Posh Spice on
Parkinson.
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