The Northumberland Coast Path

Amble

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Coquet Island from Amble Photo - Northumberland, England

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Our second day's hike took us from Druridge Bay Country Park north, past the birding centre in the dunes at Hauxley Nature Reserve and onto the market coastal town of Amble. Amble owes its roots to being a good spot to export coal from the Northumberland coalfields (alas no longer operating) and grew in the 1900s. Today, it is a slightly depressed town of around 6,000 people dependent largely on fishing and tourism. The town has a rather bizarre slogan; "Friendliest Port", which apparently derives from the 1930s when the town sent a friendly telegram message to the aging and soon to be broken up RMS Mauretania as it passed by on its final voyage. The delights of Amb...Read More

Our second day's hike took us from Druridge Bay Country Park north, past the birding centre in the dunes at Hauxley Nature Reserve and onto the market coastal town of Amble.

Amble owes its roots to being a good spot to export coal from the Northumberland coalfields (alas no longer operating) and grew in the 1900s. Today, it is a slightly depressed town of around 6,000 people dependent largely on fishing and tourism.

The town has a rather bizarre slogan; "Friendliest Port", which apparently derives from the 1930s when the town sent a friendly telegram message to the aging and soon to be broken up RMS Mauretania as it passed by on its final voyage.

The delights of Amble have passed me by in the past, and our entrance from the south of the town wasn't too positive with its crumbling empty paddling pool on display in the unloved and underutilized park. A couple of unkempt dogs hung around looking bored; it seemed that many of the humans might have moved on.

Thankfully that was about the only negative part to my brief visit to Amble. On the way into the town we passed by its array of piers forming a U around a harbour area. While perhaps a little old and run down, I liked the symmetry of the structure and wished for better light. I also spotted keen anglers on the pier many of whom were chatting to each other about the days catch and whatever else caught their fancy giving it a homely air.

Sunday in summer is Market Day and on entry to the town we were soon swept away with looking at the various stalls. It was good to see a market that catered for a full week's shop; fruit, fresh vegetables, household goods and a very good meat and fish stall. The latter in particular caught my fancy with its huge seafood platters for £5 and 3 bags of prawn for £5 offers.

The market was actually large enough for our party to lose each other, and we spent rather longer than we anticipated at the market wandering around, until one of us had the sense to stand still and wait for the others to catch up!

Amble town centre itself is an attractive looking solid stone built place with a couple of attractive looking local pubs for lunch and a pit stop of you wish, and a small corner shop if you need provisions.

Out to sea you can see the lighthouse on Coquet Island. The island is now a nature reserve and you can take a boat out there during summer months. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't quite boating weather when we were there (none too warm). The lighthouse is a great marker for hikers to appreciate just how far they have travelled, and we were impressed by the end of day 2, how far behind us it was.

I wouldn't describe Amble as the visitors dream destination, but it is pleasant enough and we enjoyed our hike through the town.
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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on June 20, 2012

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Druridge Bay Country Park

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Attraction | "Plenty of variety at Druridge Bay Country Park "

Druridge Bay Country Park Photo - Druridge Bay Country Park, Northumberland, England

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Although we consider ourselves pretty familiar with the Northumberland coast, a walk along its entire length is always going to present a few surprises. Our first just a mile out of the start of our walk came with Druridge Bay and in particular its nature reserves to the north of the bay.The Druridge Bay country park has a large car park and is a good place to explore this little region on foot. There is a maze of well made footpaths offering a considerable choice of different sceneries – coast, dune, lake or marshland.Although the visitor centre itself is an ugly 1960s type building entirely out of keeping with its surroundings it has a handy little cafe selling basic sandwich...Read More

Although we consider ourselves pretty familiar with the Northumberland coast, a walk along its entire length is always going to present a few surprises. Our first just a mile out of the start of our walk came with Druridge Bay and in particular its nature reserves to the north of the bay.

The Druridge Bay country park has a large car park and is a good place to explore this little region on foot. There is a maze of well made footpaths offering a considerable choice of different sceneries – coast, dune, lake or marshland.

Although the visitor centre itself is an ugly 1960s type building entirely out of keeping with its surroundings it has a handy little cafe selling basic sandwiches and cakes and a display showing the history of the area, and some suggestions on what to do at the country park.

The nearby lake is a filled up open cast mine; this restoration project dates from the early 1970s and the first attempt to create a lake went horribly wrong as the water drained into older and deeper mining works. To remedy the problem the bottom of the lake was packed with clay. Another problem arose as they planted quick growing pine. Unfortunately, the shallow root systems meant the adult trees have a habit of falling down, and a project is well underway to replace the pines with slower growing but more natural species with deeper root systems. A walk around the entire lake is about a mile and a half long.

The local area has a small and close knit community. This became very apparent as the local community came out enforce to look for Kip, a blind Springer Spaniel who had gone missing earlier in the week. There were plenty of leaflets, and well wishers asking us to keep an eye out for the dog (alas we didn't spot him).

It's also worth looking out for the series of community events going on in the park; on the weekend after we visited there was a VW camper van convention, and I also rather bizarrely spotted a 22.5 mile long running race described as a "marathon". Sadly, the 10K race proposed for later in the season is actually approximately 10K!

Druridge Bay Country Park is an excellent place for families to come and explore a variety of local eco-systems in a safe and controlled environment. I'm sure I would visit the country park much more often if I were local, and I particularly liked the variety of walking options from coast to lake to woodland from one starting point.
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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on June 18, 2012

Druridge Bay Country Park
Red Row
Morpeth, Northumberland NE61 5BX
01670 760968

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Druridge Bay

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Cresswell Pele Tower Photo - Northumberland, England

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Our hike along the whole length of the Northumberland coast of 64 miles started in the tiny seafront town of Cresswell. We laughed in the face of the recommended pit stops outlined in the Northumberland Coast Path; day one for us started mid afternoon and we just wanted to get 4 miles or so under our belt before moving onto our self catering cottage about mid way along route. There are a few places to park on the bay above Cresswell and in doing so we spotted what is perhaps the worst aspect of the village; a number of nose to nose family caravan sites on the cliff tops. While I understand the attractions for families for walkers these are ugly places. Moving onto the villag...Read More

Our hike along the whole length of the Northumberland coast of 64 miles started in the tiny seafront town of Cresswell. We laughed in the face of the recommended pit stops outlined in the Northumberland Coast Path; day one for us started mid afternoon and we just wanted to get 4 miles or so under our belt before moving onto our self catering cottage about mid way along route.

There are a few places to park on the bay above Cresswell and in doing so we spotted what is perhaps the worst aspect of the village; a number of nose to nose family caravan sites on the cliff tops. While I understand the attractions for families for walkers these are ugly places.

Moving onto the village proper, it is worth kicking off the hike with a home-made ice cream. Cresswell has its very own little family run ice cream shop. There are also some public toilets in the village (for the walker, these are always worth noting!) but apart from that there aren't many facilities here. One place you might well spot is the 12th century Pele Tower, a fortified tower with a watch out to ward of maurauding Scots.

The Northumberland Coast Path takes the walker along Druridge Bay, and despite the spots of light drizzle it was a wonderful introduction to the hike; a wide open expanse of sands with dunes behind. The name is a strange one and I presume named after "Druid Ridge" as there have been some Bronze Age burial pot discoveries as the shifting sands move.

In the last war, this site was muted to be one of the targets for a German invasion. You can see it would have been ideal as it is even 70 years on, isolated, sparsely populated and easy to land a good number of boats. You will see the remains of fortifications all along the coast here. In particular, you will see the large square blocks of concrete now half buried in sand, but designed as anti tank blockages.

The site behind Druridge Beach is a nature reserve with nesting birds, plants and newts and the like. They ask that visitors don't spend time yomping over the dunes as they are fragile but we spotted a family or two ignoring the request while we were there. It is a good place for birders to congregate watching wading birds in the salty marshes and there are a number of hides around.

Apparently the site was coveted by the British Nuclear Energy company as a potential nuclear power station site in the 80s and 90s. The irony of a VW camper convention the weekend after we were this was not lost; no doubt most of them would sport a faded "nuclear power- no thanks" sticker. Later, the site was muted to become a site for a concrete factory with its abundance of local sand, but it seems that ecology and eco tourism may well have won the day.

Druridge Bay is also a great place for wild flowers in early summer, including two or three variety of orchids. I could spot the vibrant purple of the common orchid from quite a distance away.

Most people simply walk their dogs on the beach and there are plenty of friendly dogs galloping around. In this part of the world with the weather being so unpredictable, there is plenty of space for everyone.
The nearby towns of Hadston and Ellington have pubs, and we particularly liked the farm shop, the Country Barn in Widdrington where we were able to buy organic meat, vegetables, cheeses and some bargain spices. While the farm shop is pricy there are some lovely treats to buy there.

Our days hike ended at the most famous part of the bay, the Druridge Bay Nature Reserve, where we had paid £4 to park one of the cars.

All in all, this was a very pleasant and easy introduction to our Northumberland Coast Path experience, and a nice walk in its own right.
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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on June 18, 2012

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Bumping into the Olympic Torch Relay

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Some of the vehicles servicing the Olympic torch Photo - Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland

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After 65 miles of hiking it seemed appropriate that when we finished our walk the streets of Berwick upon Tweed were lined with bunting and people waving Union Jacks.While the excitement coincided with our arrival in Berwick at the end of our journey, alas I must confess the welcome was not intended for us. We simply had arrived about 10 minutes before the Olympic Torch had. To be fair to the Torch it was mid way through its 8000 mile journey up down and across the UK as against our meager 65, although we had walked the whole of our trip (unlike the Torch that spends much of the time being driven around on a bus).Anyone watching the BBC news might imagine that the country has s...Read More

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Overview of the Northumberland Coast Path

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Fisherman's Pots Photo - Northumberland, England

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As part of a campaign to get fit for a long African hike later on in the year, we recently took on the rather easier challenge of a 65 mile coastal hike, the Northumberland Coast Path between Cresswell and Berwick. The walk takes you along almost deserted but beautiful sandy beaches, pretty fishing villages and sand dunes in 4-6 easy stages. Our typical hiking day was around 5 hours long and 12-14 miles in length, so a fairly gentle progress was demanded. The trick of course is to make sure you don't over strain yourself so as to ensure you also have a fairly easy yomp the following day. A 65 mile walk really is a marathon rather than a sprint. We found the Northumberland Coast...Read More

As part of a campaign to get fit for a long African hike later on in the year, we recently took on the rather easier challenge of a 65 mile coastal hike, the Northumberland Coast Path between Cresswell and Berwick.

The walk takes you along almost deserted but beautiful sandy beaches, pretty fishing villages and sand dunes in 4-6 easy stages. Our typical hiking day was around 5 hours long and 12-14 miles in length, so a fairly gentle progress was demanded. The trick of course is to make sure you don't over strain yourself so as to ensure you also have a fairly easy yomp the following day. A 65 mile walk really is a marathon rather than a sprint.

We found the Northumberland Coast Path very straightforward to follow and relied only on the 44 page booklet published by Northumberland County Council and available in North East tourist offices for around £5, or available on line. This saved us the expense of buying the four relevant OS Maps (at £8 a pop). It was for much of the journey as tricky as just making sure the sea was to our right (as we were travelling from South to North), although there is a short inland detour just before the spit out to Lindisfarne as there are two large estuaries in the way of taking a purely coastal route. However, the route was clearly marked throughout (although a careful study of some of the more weather beaten signs were needed). Likewise, most of the route was along either clear country path or along the beach- there was very little road walking required.

The only downside was the number of golf courses along the route – we walked alongside and through at least 8 courses. This doesn't make for terribly exciting walking unless of course you find the thought of being walloped on the head by a stray golf ball exciting.

On the plus side, even I a regular to the Northumberland Coast found something new to discover, be it one of the less popular and romantic towns on the coast which still had a charm about them (for example, Amble or Alnmouth) and whole new but less popular bays to explore (Druidge and Cockawburn Beach).

We were fortunate enough to be doing the walk with a friend, and so we managed to find a cottage at a central location near Craster and then take two cars, leave one at the end of our walk and then drive to the beginning. This might not have been the most eco friendly way but it meant we didn't have to pay for expensive B&B's up the coast, or decide our distances beforehand; as long as we could find somewhere to park the car then things were fine. It also meant we could simply carry a day sack; something for lunch, wet weather gear (always needed in this unpredictable part of the world), sun cream and blister plasters.

We loved our relaxing hike along the sea and found it a very stress free way to see the north east coast and enjoy the beautiful countryside. We have already discussed doing it again but from North to South to gain a different aspect.
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