Continuing our saga of Covid staycation, we decided to explore Northumberland.
Our first stop was a small site on a farm on a hill just above Bellingham.
Greeted by a rainbow
Bellingham village centre
Bellingham is a quaint little village with all the essentials – butcher, baker, pub.
We took the bikes to Kielder Water. Kielder is the largest man-made lake in the UK. Michelle decided to set herself a new distance record by cycling around the lake – just over 26 miles. A marathon.
Rest stop
We stopped at Kielder castle for our picnic lunch.
From Bellingham village we walked to Hareshaw Linn waterfall.
Next stop was the town of Hexham.
The Gaol (jail)
A prisoner
The Abbey
We moved on to another small site near Embleton Bay. It was 21 degrees, so we had a BBQ – not bad for October.
Next visit was to the historic market town of Alnwick.
Next was the dramatic castle of Bamburgh.
Warkworth castle
The many castles in the area indicate the amount of battles for ownership between Scotland and England.
Next visit was to Berwick-upon-Tweed. Officially it’s English, but the locals have mixed views.
The old road, new road, and rail bridges over the Tweed
They don’t build public toilets like this any more
We walked around the heavily fortified town walls.
We stopped at the villages of Ford, with its castle, and Etal. We both found the village of Ford very spooky. There was a very strange feeling about it.
We were always intrigued by Wooler. We had driven past a number of times so decided to stop for one night on the way home.
Guarding the entrance to the caravan site
We took a long hike to the top of Hambleton Hill Fort. It was a very clear day and the views were spectacular.
Some of the local residents. It’s not called Wooler for nothing.
