2018-08-02 The glorious Northumberland coast - 87 miles

National Cycle Route 1 runs from Dover to the Shetland Isles and although I have followed it through South Tyneside, on the Tyne Ferry and to to just north of Whitley Bay, I had so far not managed the remainder of its route through Northumberland. Tom Elliott was about to depart for a contract with Cairn India as a drilling fluids specialist, so it made sense (really?) to cycle to Whitley Bay to see him. His family were pitmen in Ashington and it was fitting that he should have chosen to pursue a geology degree at Durham, where I first met him forty odd years' ago. Then he went into the oil industry rather than coal, which was already in steady decline.

Google Maps (how we have come to rely on it) suggested that it might be 74 miles by bike, so that seemed manageable, but I set off at 07:10 to be on the safe side (ha!). I decide to take my Surly Disc Trucker touring bike, having walked the Berwick to Lindisfarne part of the route in March and found too much in the way of rocks and gravel to make it suitable for road bikes.

Image provided by Laura G: a vicious slur

My usual route from home is a great start: along the cycle path at the top of the golf course with great views over the North Sea. Then in through the Elizabethan gate of the Ramparts and down Ravensdowne, our best Georgian street, across the 17th Century Old Bridge and through Tweedmouth and Spittal. It is fair to say that quite a lot of the route after that is inland, with only occasional seaside stretches and often more distant views of the sea, if any. The route crosses and re-crosses the A1 to avoid as much traffic as possible.

After 25 miles I still felt pretty good and stopped in Bamburgh for coffee and cake and at Carter's the Bamburgh Butcher for supplies: a sizeable pork pie for lunch and a sausage roll to take home for Cath.

Courtesy of R. Carter & Son's website

The weather grew hotter and my litre of water was soon depleted. There is more climb than might be expected, as this is very rolling countryside. Soon after Bamburgh, there is an interesting tower, now converted to holiday accommodation. It was possibly a folly but some maps suggest that it may have been used as a landmark for navigation.

The Outchester Ducket

After this the route passes through Seahouses and Beadnell. These are both rather smarter than in July 1977 when Cath and I experienced our first holiday together. a very wet camping trip, which culminated in our first visit to Berwick-upon-Tweed. 40 years later we retired here. And so onward, close by Low Newton and Dunstanburgh, Craster and, since I avoided the coastal route, past the entrance to Howick Hall, where we visited the excellent arboretum in May for Cath's birthday. Then past RAF Boulmer to classy Alnmouth.

Poor image of Phantom Jet at Boulmer - in service 1969-92

I grew very confused in trying to get out of Almmouth and had to backtrack three times. I was getting hungry but I pressed on to Warkworth, wondering whether I could do much more but the outstanding pork pie and more water worked their magic. A lady asked me from whence I came and was startled when I said Berwick, destination Whitley Bay. It was already becoming clear that, despite its claims to be via Route 1, Google Maps followed a much attenuated route. My own slavish, or cravenly accurate route, was more exacting. 

Warkworth old bridge and gatehouse

Along the ever-smarter high street and past the excellent castle, I headed back to the coast and down through Amble. It too has perked up following the harbour development and the main shopping street looked spruce and fully let with independent shops that seemed to be holding their own. Even the perenially excellent Harbour Fish Bar has had a face lift.

The next stage of the trip followed the magnificent sweep of Druridge Bay. After stopping for much-needed water at the Drift cafe (chaotic), I cycled past the power station at Lynemouth (commissioned 1972 by Alcan to power their nearby aluminium smelter), once supplied by the nearby Ellington and Lynemouth collieries but now a biomass-fed plant connected to the National Grid following the mothballing of the Alcan plant in 2012. The route south through Ashington to Blyth passes the Woodhorn Colliery mining museum. Tom arranged for me and Caradoc Bevan to be elected members of the Linton and Woodhorn Social Club (CIU Affiliated) in 1975, so that we could all drink at other social clubs in the North East, taking advantage of the cheap Federation Ales then produced by a co-operative to avoid being ripped off by the big brewers. The brewers, of course, were in league with the bosses. Happy days.

It has to be said that the dual carriageways and bypasses in this section of the ride were very difficult to navigate and confusing as hell but I eventually used a pavement route into the centre of Blyth to avoid the very busy roads. The cycle route took me through Ridley Park, the name being a clue to the land ownership. The Ridley family are still coal barons in this area, the vast existing opencast mine at Shotton being part of their Blagdon Estate. Matt Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, is the former Chairman of Northern Rock, who led it to financial disaster in 2007, as the last in a long line of his family in this role. He is well known as a rightist libertarian pundit and academic.

Well, Ridley Park in Blyth, although modest, is lovely and is bordered by rather good late Victorian and Edwardian houses; coupled with the Council's investment at the docks, Blyth is looking good and it even has a seaside that I knew nothing about. Given the high cost of houses in Whitley Bay, Tynemouth, North Shields and Morpeth, it seems likely that buyers are showing increasing interest in Blyth. What a change: Blyth has been at a low ebb for a very long time.

I arrived in Whitley Bay nearly three hours late at 17:45 and drank vast amounts of tea before Tom took me to Central station for my train back to Berwick. I briefly met Vivian, his charming Nigerian wife, before we left and she was disappointed that we had been unable to visit the restored Spanish City, which has been shut up for so long. 

I had never cycled this far before in a single day and my bottom was sore but the sausage roll was intact and edible despite jumping out of my bar bag near Blyth.