Newbiggin-by-the-Sea to Amble

I was worried about the length of today's walk, especially since my blisters and Richard's injured leg were leading us to walk even more slowly than usual! We  had worked out various "escape routes" and we knew that we didn't have to walk all the way to Warkworth, where we were staying, because there is a regular bus service between Amble and Warkworth. We'd slept well at the Old Ship Inn and we were served a prompt and enormous cooked breakfast, so we were well set up for the day when we set off just before 9am. The weather forecast was a bit mixed but, like yesterday, for most of the day we were walking without waterproofs.

We’d had a reasonable view from our bedroom window of "The Couple" sculpture out in the bay, and we started today’s walk by taking some more photos of it, and also of "The Land Couple" on the the promenade. We then cut across behind Newbiggin Point, crossing then walking around the golf course. The chimney of Lynemouth Power Station had been in view on our walk yesterday, though I hadn’t realised that was what it was, and now we were definitely walking towards it. However, it was a more attractive section of coastal walking than that would imply, with the golf course on one side and low cliffs on the other, and there were other walkers about too.

As we got closer to the power station, the landscape became more industrial, indeed for some of the time we were crossing what might once have been a spoil heap, but the walking wasn’t bad. Then we walked around the coastal side of the power station (now using biomass) on a narrow, fenced path. This bit wasn’t great! At the far side, lumps of aggregate had been dumped, presumably to stop vehicles getting onto the footpath, and they had painted an England Coast Path sign on one of them. It's a nice touch, but by now I was hard to amuse! It started to drizzle and, most significantly, my feet hurt. It felt as if we had a long way to go! 

We emerged onto a minor road where a bridge enabled us to cross the River Lyne. After this, the route of the coast path on the OS map is shown heading back into the dunes towards the coast, but a sign told us not to do this, because of coastal erosion, but instead to stay on the road,  so we did. Eventually, we were able to get onto a path running parallel with the road just a short distance into the dunes, until this too came back to the road near Snab Point. I was now walking even more slowly than usual and we stopped a couple of times before Cresswell, even though this was only about a mile north of the point where we’d come back to the road. Cresswell, at the southern end of Druridge Bay and the official starting point of the Northumberland Coast Path, offered the temptations of coffee, ice-cream, and buses! We thought hard about the latter, but I’m not a quitter, so we decided to explore Druridge Bay a little before abandoning the walk.

The coast path signs led us onto the extensive dune system behind the sandy beach, but we soon lost track of the "correct" route. I can't say I was sorry, as I wasn't keen to walk through dunes for miles, especially if that meant we couldn't see the sea and the beach;  we made our way down onto the beach. It was beautiful, with a long expanse of sand stretching to the north, and we took the decision to proceed by walking along the beach. This was absolutely the right thing to do; if you come this way, we'd definitely advise you to walk along the beach. However, unfortunately, by now I was feeling quite unwell. I sat and then lay on the beach for a while and I gradually began to get my strength back. Richard offered to carry my rucksack as well as his and, for a while he did (see photo), but I soon felt able to take it back. While we certainly didn't race along for the rest of today's walk, I think this was the turning point; I stopped thinking about giving up and instead got on with the task in hand. The peace and beauty of Druridge Bay had worked its magic.

After a couple of miles of walking along the beach we decided that, in order to ensure that we didn't miss the visitor centre in the Druridge Bay Visitor Centre, we'd better rejoin the official route. This was now running on a track behind the dunes and it was rather disappointing; not only did we miss the beach (and we couldn't even see it) but a fair number of cars were coming and going on the track, which is marked as a bridleway and traffic-free cycle route! It was also quite a long walk to the visitor centre, and we could have left the beach much closer to it. A school group were just returning to their coaches at the visitor centre, one girl (with an injured leg?) being carried by a teacher who was only slightly bigger than her.  After a cup of tea and sorting my feet out, we made up for lost time by returning to that glorious beach.  Next time we left it (now necessary, because we were reaching the rocky outcrops towards the end of the beach), we found ourselves on a much nicer track, which we followed through Hauxley Nature Reserve, past a little lake. We were passed by horses but nothing more. We emerged onto a road in Low Hauxley, now just a couple of miles south-east of Amble.

We were signposted away from the road onto a path across the dunes with lovely views to Coquet Island about a mile offshore.  However, the problem now was that the path was rather rough, with steep ascents and descents - so we headed back to the road again, now the best option, and a rather better path soon took us back towards to coast. Coquet Island, is  a now an RSPB Nature Reserve, and the public are not allowed to land, but once there would have been lighthouse keepers living here, and before that there was a monestery. It is not difficult to imagine St  Cuthbert visiting the island, as he reputedly did. We were staying in Warkworth tonight, but had always known that we had the option of catching a bus from Amble for last mile or so, and walking back tomorrow morning. If it hadn’t been for our feet problems, the walk from Newbiggin to Warkworth would have been absolutely fine, but given our slow rate of progress and many stops, the option of catching a bus from Amble was a no-brainier. If you’ll excuse the pun, all that therefore remained to be done was to amble around the edge of Amble, a pleasant and interesting walk. Initially, we continued north, with good views to Coquet Island offshore and to the harbour entrance ahead, where the River Coquet reaches the sea. We stopped to enable Richard to ring his mother.

The walk around the harbour entrance was particularly interesting because at one stage the path was on a walkway over the water, and we then continued round on South Quay, obviously a working quayside, watching boats coming and going. The route of the England Coast Path briefly leaves the water’s edge and we followed it, and it wasn’t far from here to our bus stop. We wanted an X18 or an X20 heading towards Alnwick, but the question was, which side of the road did we want to be on? A friendly couple at the bus stop explained that either direction was fine, as the bus comes into Amble and leaves by the same route. We knew from Google Maps that the bus was running 6 minutes late, and in that time we got quite friendly with the other people at the bus stop.

The bus journey to Warkworth was short, and we went wizzing along Beal Bank, which we will walk alongside tomorrow. In our excitement, we got off the bus sooner than we needed to; we got off at the top of the bank, but the bus continued into the centre of the village. However, this enabled us to walk down Castle Street, past Warkworth Castle, a place we have fond memories of visiting when the children were small. In the centre of the village, we turned right onto Bridge Street and the Warkworth House Hotel was easy to find.  After how bad things had felt back on the beach at Druridge Way, I was proud that we’d got to the end of the walk, and the walk had been a lovely one. However, it was a relief that we didn’t need to go out again in the evening. We were in the very comfortable Bay Room (probably named because it has a bay window, even if the views are only of the car park) and we had a pleasant meal in the evening, being alternately irritated and amused by a group of four young women, one with a dog which she let wander over to us on its lead, without a thought as to whether we minded (we didn’t of course) and causing some difficulty for the staff who were serving us.

Following leg