Tuesday 15 June: the Northumberland Coast

 We are up at 7:00 and have breakfast outside with Ellie in the bright sunshine. We head off at 9:00 towards Warkworth with its impressive castle and then pick up the coastal route heading North to Alnmouth.The tide is going out and we find good firm sand to walk on all the way. We see terns (roseate?) diving into the sea for sand eels and some black ducks with their group off young bobbing along the sea by some rocks. Frustratingly it’s not possible to cross the Aln at its mouth so the route takes us on an annoyingly long winded detour when we seemed so tantalisingly close. We meet up with Michael and his parents and have coffee together and then walk further along the beach and eat our picnic overlooking the sea. There are WW2 anti tank concrete blocks scattered along the coast here to thwart an anticipated Nazi invasion from Norway. Coquet island (where we going tomorrow) clearly visible off the coast from Amble.

After a refreshing Farne Island beer at the Red Lion we say our farewells and Michael drops us back at the beach so we can retrace our steps along the coast. We find an interesting route back along the Coquet river  circumnavigating Warkworth and are feeling rather weary as we arrive back at Walkmill after about 13/14 miles of walking today. Still very light at 10:30 when we get ready to retreat upstairs.