Sunday 15 May 2011

The Inn Way Northumberland - Day 4

14 May: Embleton - Bamburgh (11 miles)

It's always satisfying to get away without delay - breakfast at a reasonable time, and no faffing around. Happily, that's how it was this morning. Only 11 miles to my destination but with the BBC doom merchant forecasting heavy, thundery showers later, I didn't want to dawdle today.

The wind direction had changed. The last couple of days I had been partly wind assisted; today I was leaning into it. A local told me that it was the east and north winds that kept most tourists off the beaches.

Lunch was taken at Seahouses - a nice little place with some of the paraphrenalia of a seaside town; amusement arcades, fish & chip shops and the like. A healthy ham salad sandwich in a bakery cafe for me as I sat beside a young man seeing off a Belly Buster Stottie. A stottie is a jumbo size bun the size of a large dinner plate. The Belly Buster is half a stottie filled with sausage, bacon, egg, mushrooms, baked beans and tomatoes. I understand that elsewhere, hot roast beef and gravy stotties are popular. Sounds good but I thought "laters" and went for a half pint of Five Bridges Bitter as a chaser in a pub down the road.

The final three miles today were along a (sorry to go on about the beaches but they are lovely) white, sand beach which lead to the sand dunes below Bamburgh Castle.

It's not until you reach the landward side of the castle that you can appreciate just how big and beautiful the fortress is. It's breathtaking. For once, awesome might be the right word.

3 comments:

J_on_tour said...

Great post, I am reminiscing now. Bamburgh beach is the best and it's what Northumbrian's like to keep secret ....
http://jayzspaze.blogspot.com/2010/09/seahouses-2-to-bamburgh-beach.html

Book said...

Fantastic photo and caption. Bravo!

Unknown said...

Book: Waited around a while, the just pointed my phone and clicked!

Thanks.

Brian