The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Friday 21 February 2014

Northumberland Coast Path

The first half of today’s outing up the Northumberland Coast Path, to the north of Beal, was rather disappointing for its lack of coastalness. It started with promise as we slip-slid our way alongside the North Low river/drain.

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Within the next mile there were just a couple of moments where we had glimpses of the beach and the retreating sea, and soon we were heading slightly inland, from where the only hint we had that we were near the sea was the presence of dunes a distance away off to our right. Ignoring the sand dunes, we could have been walking through farmland anywhere, although there were some points of interest, such as this enormous pile of hay, topped by a herd of cows:

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And these early lambs sheltering from the keen, cold wind:IMG_5906

Having walked through Berwick-on-Tweed (Goswick) Golf Club (which was incredibly busy), and taken the path’s ridiculously circuitous path around the driving range, we reached a little dead-end lane, just a kilometre or so south of where we were due to turn inland to take field-paths back to our start point.

The little dead-end lane, with a trodden line into the dunes, gave me the notion that we could continue on our way along the dunes, rather than along the coastal-path-with-no-coastal-view. So, seaward we headed and from the vantage point of a tall dune a splendid view opened up of miles of sand. Immediately, the further notion entered my head that instead of walking through non-descript farmland, we could simply turn at this point and walk back along the beach.

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We didn’t go that way, but I didn’t take a photo in the other direction.

It was a much more pleasing return route, with the added spice of needing to cross a rather large (and in places deep) stream, complete with surprise areas of quick-sand.

The wind really picked up whilst we were paused on the beach for lunch (the cake, in particular, had a crunch to it that shouldn’t have been there) so, in common with yesterday, the final bit of the outing was a bit of a battle.

The final stats (including my detour up the road to a post box) were 12.1 miles walked with probably not much more than 150’ of ascent.

3 comments:

  1. Those cows are bizarre.

    I see Blogger is still blocking the slideshow on click to enlarge, but on my blog it's up and running again. One wonders what they are up to.

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    1. I didn't even know that there was a slideshow option when you click to enlarge!

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    2. I may be wrong Conrad/Gayle but i think it may have something to do with who or where you store the images rather than something Blogger is doing.

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