Light

As an opportunistic add on to yesterday's work meeting in Newcastle I spent the night in a Whitley Bay guesthouse ahead of a walk up the coast to Blyth today.

The stretch of coast between Tynemouth and St. Mary's Island (Whitley Bay) is one of my special places, the scene of countless day trips and walks in the twelve years that I lived in Tyne & Wear. I'd scarcely visited the stretch north of that though, with Blyth generally having been by-passed en-route to the delights of Druridge Bay, Dunstanburgh, Amble and Holy Island.

The stretch up to St. Mary's island is good for birds with Eider, Redshank, Sanderling, Cormorant and Oystercatcher along withvarious gulls (see extras for a Redshank looking after a creche of Sanderling and Sanderling close-up.) The tide was out so I was able to nip out along the causeway to the first lighthouse of the day. The last time I was here was later in the year and the seals were out on the rocks (as I blipped at the time) but it was quiet today.

The next stretch was along the cliff-tops past Hartley to Seaton Sluice, a small harbour village where there was nice little beachcomber art workshop/studio with additional pieces scattered all over (extras).

From there it was couple of miles of beach and dunes up to Blyth, but still with reminders of old industry like bricks from the former Hartley Main Colliery washing around in the surf. Approaching Blyth, the huge harbour wind turbine, long pier and lighthouse pull you in with impressive waves rolling in from the North Sea. I've chosen the lighthouse for my main image (closer view here).

All of which was paced nicely to lead me through the Blyth back streets to Croft Park, home of Blyth Spartans for their Northern Premier League match against Corby Town (extra). Blyth have a healthy lead at the top of the league and had a fairly comfortable 4-2 win, although Corby's first goal was the special one - a spectacular 35 yarder from Stefan Moore. Having watched a few games in the league above (National League North) this season at Bradford Park Avenue, Harrogate Town and Halifax Town I'd think Blyth will be fine when they make the step up.

With the light fading there was just time to nip down to the harbour to look at the big boats and find a nice ghost sign before catching the bus into Newcastle and the train home. I'd forgotten that the Saturday night Newcastle-Leeds train is one long night-out party commute, so it was earphones in and eyes closed for the duration.

Quite an intense day, but a good and recuperative sort of intense.