WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE: Alnwick and Amble

 Our legs are tired from the miles on the sands yesterday so we decide on a cycling day today. We negotiate the stony track to our campsite and then get slightly lost as Simon can’t help but navigate us through a hamlet called High Busted! We are following a marked cycle track but it is mostly on the road apart from a mile or so that follows the old railway from Alnmouth to Alnwick - pleasant coastal views and colourful hedgerows. We stop at Barters Bookshop - one of the largest second hand bookshops in the world situated in the old railway station. We browse a little (I reminisce over the Rupert books that Grandpa used to read to us!) and then we have a coffee in the cafe in the old station waiting room. On to Alnwick Castle which has a heavy Harry Potter theme but is certainly impressive. We queue to get in to the State Rooms but unfortunately find ourselves in an orderly and socially distanced rather slow moving line all the way through some rather dark and dingy rooms similar to a lot of other historic buildings and we are unable to whizz through and escape! Simon says it is a nightmare! We share a platter of delicious local cheeses outside in a courtyard with a thimble of Lindisfarne mead. Simon even has his hair trimmed a the local barber! Back to base for tea and a quick shower before cycling off to Amble for our boat trip. Far from being underwhelmed it is superb. Coquet Island is alive with puffins (32, 000 of them no less!), guillemots, terns, fulmars, kittiwakes and a pack of grey seals. We even see several rare Roseatte terns. The Old Boathouse Restaurant where we had booked is closed as many of their staff are self isolating but we are lucky to get a table at The Fish Shack although it is outside and it does get very chilly. Haddock & Salmon fish cakes and posh fish and chips washed down with some chilled Sauvignon Blanc before the cycle home. It is still light at 10pm.

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