Tynemouth to Blyth

We slept well at "No. 61" and when I woke a little early, I was very happy to sit and look at the view from our room. A "Hoegh Autoliners" ship passed on its way out to sea, though the direction of the sun made photography difficult. The B&B, very sensibly, won't book too many guests for breakfast at one time, and others had got in ahead of us, so 8.30 was the earliest slot available. This actually worked well, because we were able to sort out our rucksacks before breakfast. Breakfast was tasty (a pleasant cooked breakfast) and we discovered that most (or all?) of the other guests were from different countries, at the start of a walking holiday on Hadrian's Wall booked by Mickeldore. Now, we've walked the Hadrian's Wall Path  (though we walked from west to east) and know it doesn't go to Tynemouth. It turns out that Mickledore advertise their holiday as starting in Tynemouth, then advise walkers to catch the Metro to Wallsend, where the path actually starts (or ends). It seems a bit odd, but I imagine that there is a better choice of B&B in Tynemouth - and it does mean that the walk becomes a coast to coast. Meanwhile we were heading north, but before doing so, we stopped at the Co-op for applies.

Today's walk started with very straightforward stroll along the sea front through Tynemouth, Cullercoats and Whitley Bay. There's not a lot to say about this section though it was pleasant enough, with a glorious expanse of sand (famous in our family as the place where I got my nickname "Kipper" following a barbeque with the guide company I used to help to run).  There are also some lovely terraces of Georgian houses. When I lived in Newcastle, I remember going to lunch with a family who lived in one of them, and the views from it were stunning. Cullercoats, a former fishing village,  is noteworthy for the enormous St George's Church and the Dove Marine Laboratory. Today, the whole of the walk was also memorable for the number of school groups, mostly enjoying end-of-year activities on the beach. 

We reached a large car park and stopped to give my feet some TLC. This area is clearly popular with dog walkers, many with more than one dog (and one, who turned out to be a professional dog-walker, had about eight!). A friendly woman told us how nice the area around St Mary's Lighthouse is, and she turned out to be right. The lighthouse had been in sight as we'd walked through the built up area, but from this car park onwards the countryside became more open and for a while we were on a non-tarmacked path, which was nice.  We reached another car park and from here we could have taken a low-level path to the lighthouse, but the signposted route stayed at a higher level and so did we. We followed a minor road leading to yet another car park, the closest to the lighthouse that vehicles can get, and with a convenient toilet. 

The area around St Mary's Lighthouse is a a nature reserve and, tide conditions permitting, you can get out to the lighthouse and even climb up it. The details (and opening times) are here. Our focus was on getting to Seaton Sluice for lunch before it started to rain, so we didn't stop, but St Mary's Lighthouse looks nice. We'll have to come back. We continued on a path (following some slightly irritating dog walkers who were walking at about the same speed as us) which we thought was taking us inland, but from the map it seems we were largely just following the shape of the coast. There were good views back to the lighthouse.  We again felt we were turning inland on the approach to Seaton Sluice. There was a bench just as we reached the road, which we could have used to sort out my feet, but it was just starting to rain, so we continued along the road the short distance to Castaways Tea Shop. It's quite a small cafe and it was quite busy, but there was room for us and we had a very pleasant salad for lunch. The rain had stopped by the time we emerged.

After we'd stopped at a different bench to sort out my feet and visited the toilet block (with access complicated by the man who was up a ladder right in front of the entrance, attaching bunting to a lamp post - and the two men watching!) we made our way out of Seaton Sluice.  The harbour, where Seaton Burn reaches the sea, is an attractive place. We turned right onto the main road, and had the excitement of a large number of emergency vehicles, mostly police cars, coming racing down the road towards us and turning down the minor road the way we had come. It is difficult to imagine what might have happened on such a short stretch of minor road to justify such activity. 

We turned off the main road on the path than runs from here to the outskirts of Blyth, being passed by another group of schoolchildren heading back from the beach. We'd have been well advised to head straight across the dunes to the beach and to follow that all the way to Blyth, but we stuck to the signposted route. It was a tarmacked surface (sometimes useful, but not easy on the feet and knees), went behind the dunes (so we couldn't even see the sea) and part-way along it started to rain again. Ah well.  The route took us down to the sea-front briefly and we realised that  we were now about level with the five wind turbines that we had seen in the distance for some time.  There was a ship of some sort out amongst them, perhaps an offshore supply vessel. It looked tiny. We could also see the entrance to Bylth Harbour and as we watched, another ship left the harbour. This was the REM Supporter, which is an offshore supply vessel. 

After passing the bandstand, we had to turn inland again to avoid an industrial area of dockland. We followed the B1329 for a while but then, to our delight, we reached Ridley Park and we really enjoyed our meander through it. I'm not sure if we followed the correct route all the way (actually I'm sure I didn't, because I wandered off to look at a rose garden) but it didn't matter. By the time we got to the far side, I'd not really got much idea where I was, but Richard and the phones led us down to the Quay, past the lifeboat station and so to "Williams II". This is a tall ship, built in 1914 in Denmark, which  is similar to one built in Blyth 200 years ago, and from which Captain Smith discovered Antarctica, though the discovery was not recognised at the time. The Williams II now takes young people on training voyages, one of the enterprises run by "Blyth Tall Ship".

Our hotel, the Commissioners Quay Inn, was just further down Quay Street. We followed a party of three (a young woman and her parents) who were just checking in and we were directed to a room on the first floor. The room, which was large and had a good view over the channel to the harbour and the sea beyond - and a bath! It was a very pleasant surprise; we think we probably had a free upgrade.  We struggled to open the window (we thought it was locked and didn't want to force it) and a friendly member of staff came to advise us. After I'd made use of the bath, we enjoyed watching the activity on the quayside and beyond from our window. We became aware that, where there had been one ship amongst the the offshore wind turbines, now there were two; the original one now looked possibly enormous compared with its little "offspring" and something was being transferred from one ship to the other. We realised that they were both offshore supply vessels - and the "little one" was actually the REM Supporter that we'd seen leaving the harbour earlier. So we knew that this ship isn't really that small and the one with it really is enormous. Our understanding of the size of offshore support vessels was confirmed when we suddenly became aware of a massive ship (another similar one) passing outside our bedroom window!

The whole hotel was actually a pleasant surprise; it's quite new and has a large bar/eating area on the ground floor, and we thought it might be rather trendy, but it actually had quite a family feel and we fitted in fine. Later on, we had a pleasant meal in the bar, then went out of explore the immediate area around. There is a peculiar piece of modern art on the quayside. "Spirit of the Staithes"; it is a large sculpture with plates at the top which, when aligned,  give the shape of a steam train - we could see how this might be, but we couldn't actually get the plates to align. Perhaps we needed to be further away or perhaps (as others have pointed out) we needed to be in the middle of the road! The other points of interest were more functional: there is a conventional on shore wind turbine as well as those out at sea, an Anemoi Rotor Sail (demonstrating a modern way of using wind power) and, further into the docks, some grain silos - plus the Williams II tall ship in the opposite direction. 

Following leg of England Coast Path