Northern England Walks

We returned to England from France through a little known gateway, the East Midlands airport. Expecting little more than a doghouse, we were gobsmacked at the immensity of the airport. In Nottingham, we caught up with Sheila's cousins (Iris & Peter). Nottingham is a nice city with plenty going on. Our train journey to Yorkshire included two changes and took us through the heart of England passing through Chesterfield, Sheffield, Leeds and onto the market town of Selby and Sheila's 2^nd cousins (Nick & Jo). We were treated to Yorkshire pudding in county York. We encountered a group of bicycle tourists on a church bell ringing tour (who says the English are eccentric?). Up the road at lovely York, tourists flock to the old town or the Viking museum but the real highlight is the National Rail museum. Where else can you sit down in a Japanese bullet train and see royal train carriages, used by the British monarchs from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II (quite unlike the Howrah Express we traveled on in India).

We pressed on to the North Yorkshire coast. When you arrive at the coast at Scarborough, you feel like you have emerged from a time machine 50 or 60 years earlier. Not many people outside of northern England know anything about the wonderful coast, so as a visitor, it feels oddly voyeuristic. There is a pleasant mix of hotels, B&B's and private homes overlooking the North Sea at Scarborough. The North Bay is huge, wide stretch of sand where happy people make sandcastles, go for pony rides, stake down wind breaks and play beach cricket. A brave few take off their jumpers and jump in to the mid-summer water (some even go in the sea over their knees). And, if you think it doesn't get any better than this, well head right over to the South Bay where unbridled fun runs rampant. Amusement park rids, rock shops, arcades, fish & chip shops and few people outside the region know about this exotic destination. It's amazing!!!

The footpath along the cliffs of North Yorkshire is called the “Cleveland Way”, clearly in need of a re branding (apologies to Cleveland, Ohio). Magnificent beaches greeted us at Robin Hood;s Bay and at Whitby. We followed the coast as far as the quaint village of Staithes.

We then slingshot by bus to the Scottish border at Berwick upon Tweed via Middlesborough and Newcastle. England still tenuously holds onto a remarkably good local (privatized) bus system. Somewhere along the way, we left familiar England and we entered the elusive “North”. If you were limited to just one place to visit in the North, you should head straight to the Newcastle (Haymarket) bus station. Sit down and list to the conversations. Geordie is an accent like no other; it's music to the ears and it's the way English was meant to be spoken. Berwick has an impressive old citadel and we climbed the ramparts, looking for marauding Scots or even Mel Gibson. Berwick see sawed back and forth between England and Scotland but nowadays it is firmly in the hands of dog walkers.

For most British walkers, an “OS” (Ordinance Survey) map is essential kit. However, we balked at purchasing a string of OS maps for a jaunt along the coast. Instead, we used a few digital photos of a road map to guide us south (keep the North Sea on your left). The Northumberland coast is a great deal wilder than most English coast lines. It is largely undeveloped and in places the beach is a kilometre wide. The area around Lindisfarne (Holy Island) changes from sand to a sand & mud and is subject to huge tidal influences. It is strongly advised to travel by foot in this area with an experienced local guide. Heck, we had those digital pictures of a road map, the tide was coning in fast and we were starting to get stuck in the mud. We passed a group of cockle collectors in waders, going the other way, who yelled to us that the tide was coming in. We slipped inland, through a few paddocks with passive bulls and eventually found a proper footpath.

The Northumberland coast features a series of long beaches, small seaside towns and crumbling castles. Bamburgh, Seahouses, Craster and Alnmouth are a few of the towns and we were fortunate that the puffins were behind their regular schedule in 2010. Many puffins lingered on the Farne Islands well into August. They are all supposed to have left to bob around some fishing grounds in the middle of the North Sea .

Hadrian's wall (120km long) is another UNESCO world heritage site and a testament to the tenacity of ancient Rome. We took a stroll on our first night (at Chollerford) along the wall to see the ruins of a Roman abutment (mass of masonry receiving the arch at each end of a bridge).There is nothing like an after-dinner abutment.

We skipped the first 30 miles of the wall from Newcastle, as there isn't a wall on the lower sections; the stones made fine materials for road building. Initially, the walk was an uneventful wander along the remains of a Roman ditch. We were optimistic that a wall would materialize, after all, it's not called the Hadrian's Ditch. As you move along the reconstructed sections, you start to gain a real appreciation for the ancient Romans and the enlisted soldiers of the day. The scenery and atmosphere improves as you reach the high ground, often following the Whin Sill escarpment (a sill is a a tabular body of intrusive igneous rock!).

The big plus of walking in England, is when it starts to rain, you are seldom far from a welcoming pub. Back in Newcastle, we caught a Mega bus in the rain to London and stayed with Sheila's cousin (Ned & Evie) before setting off for India and something completely different.