Chores, TV and English Walks

Saturday, 5 July 2014

It started raining on Friday night, and when we woke up it was raining, so spent morning doing domestic chores.  The sun came out after lunch, so I left Brian working on the computer and went for a walk.  The tide was out so walked on the rock self to discover what the little hut on the far side of it is.  Turns out it houses life saving equipment.  Continued on over the golf course and came back and sat on one of the benches overlooking the sea.  It was such a beautiful afternoon the other woman sitting on the bench turned out to be a twitcher and she was taking photos of the rookery at the edge of the cliff near the golf course.  Her husband is into diving, so I learned about another activity which operates out of Seahouses.  

I watched as they prepared the boat for diving on Sunday morning

A boat full of divers leaving Seahouses early Sunday morning

She was complaining about the lack of mobile coverage in England so I was telling her about the NBN debate in Oz.  I was explaining that Turnbull's plan disadvantages the people who live in rural areas in Australia, and she said that there is a similar debate going on here.  Apparently the Post Office is complaining that it cannot compete with the private parcel delivery service in the remoter parts of Britain and want to stop this aspect of their business.  With conservative governments in both Britain and Australia  "open for business" is the go, so long as it is for private profit!

Played Scrabble on the iPad in the evening.  We usually watch TV at night.  There are a tremendous number of "free to air" stations here, but they are very similar to the ones at home.  Reruns of just about everything.  To top it all, the BBC has gone sports mad - Wimbledon takes precedence over everything, but that is supplemented with large doses of over enthusiastic reporters raving about the Tour de France which started in Yorkshire this year plus the World Cup football.  As someone who can't abide all the sport broadcasting in Oz I'm flabbergasted by the coverage here.  I told Brian the other night that I'm sure it is because the western world is "male"!  Don't think he agreed with me though.

On the subject of TV.  We do enjoy the program "Pointless".  It is a type of quiz show where 100 people are surveyed with the question and the objective is for the contestants to come up with the most obscure or pointless answer.  It is quirky and often the contestants come up with an answer that scores 2 or 3 but the object is that it has to be 0.  It is very British centred which is probably why we have not seen it in Oz. 

There are lots of programs similar to Grand Designs.  While all the sport was going on we watched one called "A place in the Sun: At home or away?"  Brian has a running commentary about it which runs along the lines that none of them have done much research and most of them don't know what they want!  The other that we watched often are the reruns of MASH.  There have also been a few good movies, but nothing to write home about.  At one stage we even saw one of our favourites "As time goes by".

SUNDAY, 6 JULY 2014

Another beautiful sunny morning.  The first day of our last week in England.  I went for a walk on the beach and when I got back, Brian suggested we could do the walk we had talked about with the very helpful woman at the Wooler tourist information office.  It is a new walk in the Northumberland National Park and had been written about in one of the brochures we had found at the house we are staying in.  She explained that there are a lot of "finger valleys" in the Cheviots but most of the walks are linear, and walkers like circular walks.  Being an optimist I believed her but the College Valley walk from Hethpool was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I'm sorry that I was so angry about it and that Brian had to put up with me cursing and swearing as we progressed through the second half of it, but I will never ever go for another walk like this in an English national park.

Apart from a few cars cleaning up after a party in the National Park the night before it started out as a nice walk.  It was on a small road beside a river and we could see what looked like trails on the other side. 

This is the youth hostel with two tipi tents - part of the accommodation for the party on Saturday night. 

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When we left the road, the directions were to turn left after crossing the river into some trees.  In this environment that is a bit like the description someone else reported on about going across the paddock with the sheep in it!

There was no way mark to be seen anywhere near the start of this new part of the walk.  So we went on up further to what looked like a track.  The description of the walk included a cya (cover your a....) statement about it being steep, so we took it that this was the steep bit, but when we got there we could find no alternative route down.  So down we came and retraced our steps to find a break in the trees which is where the way mark should have been.

I agree. The instructions were that 'just before the second gate leave the track and bear left down through the trees'. Well I was interested in how we had missed the turning. The turning had all the appearance of a small gap in a privet hedge! Definitely no sign or waymark. The whole point of signs and waymarks is that they be placed in situations which are unclear or there is some ambivalence about the exact direction. It should be noted that these instructions were in the 'Northumberland National Park - Visitor Guide 2014' although it should be stressed that the authorities are constrained by the interests and influences of private and often influential land holders not to mention the world wide shift to small government which often gives low priority to social investment.  

We could see that the trees formed a kind of wood, so we walked through them, me thinking that the track had to get better.  But there simply was no track unless you call this one -

The black dot two thirds up and centre is me chest high in bracken!

 


The things that look like posts are not actually posts, they are shields protecting small oak trees!

 The vegetation on either side was so high a short person would have difficulty seeing where they were going.  I couldn't see what was under my feet but could feel lots of rocks, long grass and water.  By this time we were so far in we were hoping it would get better because the thought of going back was horrible.  About two hours later, it did get a bit better.  But not much.  The best part of it was the bridge across the river that got us back to civilisation.  But that's it as far as I'm concerned.  Never again will I believe anything anyone tells me about a walk in an English National Park.  

Which brings me to my favourite gripe concerning the putative term 'National Park' for large areas of English countryside. It would be far clearer, from the viewpoint of the international visitor, if the original and more accurate term 'Commons' were used. The existing 'National Parks' contain many farmhouses, hamlets, some villages and in some cases at least one town. Also, crop farming and the grazing of domestic sheep and cattle are widespread. In the New Forest, for example, animal husbandry of feral horses is permitted and domestic cattle and horses are allowed on occasions to run free in this so called 'National Park'; and also the cropping of the forest is allowed albeit to approved foresters as a private business activity - all in the claim of conserving the park's environment. Essentially the problem lies in that Britain started far too late (1951) in gazetting these so called national parks.

More of Northumberland

Tuesday, 1 July 2014


 Yesterday we had booked the bus from Newcastle to the ferry port at North Shields so needed to get a copy of our ticket printed. We drove down to Alnwick and fixed this up at the library. This is a market town with an ever present castle and gardens within the castle grounds. On the way down Mary spotted a road sign to Rock which rang a bell of our travels back in 1964 when we stopped at a Youth Hostel called Rock Hall.

On the way back we passed through Bamburgh Village so decided to visit the Grace Darling Museum.  She was the daughter of a Lighthouse keeper and the Museum had a lot of personal items which help tell the story of her life.  On 7th September 1838 she became a British heroine, when the media heard about how she rescued a number of people of the steamship SS Forfarshire which was wrecked nearby. Unfortunately she only had a short life and died in her late twenties probably as a result of consumption.


     

The Memorial window in St Aidan's Church, Bamburgh

Grace Darling's tomb in the Bamburgh Cemetery St Aidan's Church

Wednesday, 2 July 2014

Today we checked out Rock on the net and confirmed that Rock Hall was a Youth Hostel but is now Rock Hall School.

Rock Hall School

Here is a pic of earlier times as a youth hostel (taken from the net). The link to the site is

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/773690

 


We then went to check out yet another seaside town called Craster but it was very busy and the pub was under some pressure as it was the traditional eating hour. Of course there was another castle!

Dunstanburgh Castle

               

Craster with harbour in foreground

Thursday, 3 July 2014

Today we went on a drive to visit a few more towns in the area. The first was to Rothbury where we did a stroll down the riverbank to Thrum Mill - this was a restoration documented in the TV series The Restoration Man by George Clarke.

 

Thrum Mill - Rothbury

Here is a link to the owners' blog which tells the full story of the restoration -  http://thrummill.wordpress.com/   (right click for options).

On then to Otterburn a small village with the main attraction being the old Otterburn Mill now a store similar to the Edinburgh Mill chain. Started a walk here listed as the Village Trail but turned back as it became less clear (as lots of English walks tend to do) and it became less attractive with lots of nettles and other weeds.

After a quick coffee we moved on to check out Newbiggin by the Sea a small town only 30 minutes from Newcastle and thus probably home of many business commuters. A very attractive bay and beach with a renovated seawall and out in the bay a huge sculpture called Couple.

There is a matching much smaller sculpture on the esplanade and the explanation is that the couple are doing what most people do when the get close to the sea.  That stand and look out at it!
 


Friday, 4 July 2014

Took a drive to check out to St Cuthbert's cave at Holburn near Belford - one of two natural sandstone caves in Northumberland that have been traditionally associated with St Cuthbert the seventh century Anglo-Saxon monk, bishop and hermit. 

It was in such an out of the way place that despite being only a few miles from Seahouses it took us longer to find the start of the track in than it did to do the short walk to the cave itself. Of course the walls of the cave are awash with inscriptions from more recent times which certainly detracts from the site's religious significance.

St Cuthbert's Cave - Holburn - Brian checking the map on the iPad!

Anyone interested in St Cuthbert will find the link to Wikipedia useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Cuthbert%27s_Cave  (right click for options).




After this we headed off to Wooler to do a short walk up Humbleton Hill site of an original hill fort built over 2000 years ago. It was a well graded walk with the track winding around the hill to reach the summit. However, like all north country summits it was as windy as all hell and not a time to dally although I did take a pic of Wooler on the way down.

View of Wooler from Humbleton Hill

Northumberland

Saturday, 28 June 2014

We left Braemar around 9.00 and headed south.  Crossed the Firth of 
Forth on the fabulous bridge and dropped into Berwick on Tweed.  Neither of us recognised it and wondered why until we finally realised that we had never been there.  The last time we were in Scotland was in 2006 and we stayed in North Berwick, and not Berwick on Tweed!

Found our way to Seahouses and found the cottage without too much hassle.  It was about 5.30 when we arrived and moved in.  The house is on three levels and is nicely decorated with a seaside theme.  The living area is a bit squeezy, but adequate and has a nice Ikea kitchen.  Couldn't believe that it has a table and chairs exactly the same as the ones Janiece had in her apartment in Hong Kong. 

Having settled in, we decided to go for a walk along the Northern Coastal Trail.  After all my complaints about farm animals, we could not believe that these were the first notices we saw when we started walking the Northern Coastal Trail!

Continued for a while across the golf course, but it was cold with a strong wind blowing, so headed back for our first fish and chip meal.  Fish was very nice, but were not too impressed by the chips.  Brian has decided that the only people who make decent chips are the Belgiums.

The village is right in the middle of a long stretch of coastline - and fishing has been and still appears to be the main industry.  There is a small protected harbour with a lot of boats.  Because it is close to the Farne Islands which are nature reserves, tourism is also very important, with a number of boats taking people to see the birds, seals, dolphins etc.

Sunday 29th June.

A very cold wind blowing, so we rugged up and had coffee at the Bamburgh Inn which is not in Bamburgh, but overlooks the Seahouses Harbour.  Decided to walk down to the next village,  - past the flying golf balls - and along the beach to Beadnell.  Had an ice cream and headed back.   Fish, but no chips, for tea.

Monday 30th June.

 A very nice day so we went north to Holy Island.  Expected it to be a bit like Caldey Island in Wales, but it was not nearly as interesting.  There is not much left of the Priory and what is, is a ruin.  Couldn't see the point of paying to go inside when you could see the same ruins from the outside.   Took lots of photos and visited the Church of St. Mary which had a fantastic wooden sculpture as you walked in, but I couldn't find any information about it anywhere.  We looked in all the shops to see if there were postcards of it, but no joy.  Maybe it is a case of the locals  knowing what it is about and not thinking it is worth telling anyone else!

 Brian found this on the net.  It is a sculpture that represents the return of St Cuthbert to Holy Island.

Priory from the Lookout

St. Aidan

 Unlike the Akers, we left in plenty of time to make sure that we were not caught on the causeway as the tide was coming in, and decided to visit North Berwick.  It at least was a bit more familiar than Berwick on Tweed, but was much busier than we had remembered.  There were lots of people on the beach and there is a very big sea pool at one end of the beach.  It reminded me of Manly Beach in Sydney.  Had coffee in a deli, and bought some delicious salads to accompany some home cooked cod for dinner.  Brian had bought it and some other fish from the shop next door.  It is a favourite of Rick Stein's and has a smoke house which has delicious smells emanating from it when we walk past.

Large sea pool in background.

North Berwick Beach, which reminded me of Manly Beach NSW

Got back late from our long drive - North Berwick is almost back to Edinburgh - and had our cod and salads for dinner. Didn't take any photos of dinner, but afterwards, I went down to the harbour and across the top of the cliffs that lead away fromSeahouses toward Bamburgh.  Took some sunset photos of the islands and think I managed to get one with one of the lights flashing from the southern end light house.  Zoom in to see it.

  

 Must admit that I probably feel more at home in this environment by the sea, than anywhere else in UK. The only difference I guess is the weather.  When we were driving back from North Berwick yesterday,    very nice sunny day, we were talking about it and both felt that it was very like the scenery around Byron Bay in northern NSW.  Rolling green hills and cultivated fields.  The village of Seahouses is also unlike the other seaside places we have been to in UK.  It is nothing like Yarmouth or Scarborough in Yorkshire with their grand hotels and amusement parlours - there is a small amusement parlour here - but nothing like the ones in these other seaside places we have visited.   To my mind while they have aspects that are delightful in their own way, they are not as natural as Seahouses.  This is probably due to their history and the different purposes they served, tourism versus industry, but I like the more natural aspect of Seahouses as opposed to the tourism of the others.

 

Shelf like Coalcliff NSW

Harbour at Seahouses. I left out the modern buildings.

TUESDAY 1 JULY 
  

Today we did a walk north along the beach to Bamburgh, and when we returned Brian was saying that except for the houses, we could be walking on a beach anywhere in Oz.  I had to point out to him though, that unfortunately, Seahouses has lost some of its uniqueness, by allowing some very modern 2000 type building to built on the seafront which are totally out of character with the rest of the buildings.  Again it was a beautiful sunny day, and we even when paddling in the north sea.  Brian said he thought it was warm when I said it was cold!  I thought it was Mary who is supposed to be contrary?

You'll have to zoom in to see him

He didn't chop my head off.  Like the shadow

 
Beforehand, we went down to Alnwick - it is the closest place that has a library - so that Brian could print out the ticket to get us from Newcastle city to the port of Newcastle on Saturday week.  It and the other market town Wooler which we visited on the way back were interesting towns.  We might do some walking in the Cheviot hills from Woolmer, so stay tuned for more posts from this region.