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]

Sunday 23 February 2014

Seahouses

At times it felt like I was aboard a ship last night, as Colin swayed and bounced in the wind. At about 6am, as I listened to it howling outside, it occurred to me that we wouldn’t even be walking the shorter version of today’s intended route. Instead, a very lazy morning was had with many cups of tea and much reading of books.

Even though the weather showed no signs of calming down, with the afternoon upon us, out we went, heading south on the Coast Path (which runs across fields and not on the coast) so that we would be against the wind for the outward leg of our route. It was a bit of a battle, which made it all the better when we reached Seahouses and found a few pockets of shelter. I can’t imagine it was much fun for the golfers on the exposed course on the headland at Seahouses.

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After  taking a turn around the harbour and headland at Seahouses…

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…back along the beach we went – which was far nicer than the (inland) Coast Path of our outward route. Of course, the beach was only a feasible route because the tide was out (but I had checked that it would be before we went).

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The dry sand from the dunes rushed seawards across the beach all around us, but now the wind was mainly behind or across us. It didn’t look such fun for the people heading the other way (not that there were many people out today). I imagine they were crunching much more of the flying sand than I was.

The final turn back towards our starting point put us back into the wind, timed nicely just as a shower came through too. But soon we were back in the dry (albeit still rocking) Colin, having covered 6.5 miles with just a small modicum of up.

Hopefully this weather will calm down by tomorrow (our last day of walking for this holiday), so that we can go and walk the route we had originally intended for today.

2 comments:

  1. Hush, don't tell everybody about this wonderful area - let's keep it to ourselves!

    JJ

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    Replies
    1. I suspect, based on the number of seasonal campsites, holiday lets and car parks, that quite a few people already know about this area, even if the majority prefer to visit in summer.

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