A ramble into ‘Amble’

Thursday 12th May 2022

Today for our last bit of walking while based in this part, we caught the bus to Lynemouth and enjoyed a fabulous walk back to Amble, where we have stayed the last 3 nights.

All went swimmingly – up nice and early, found the bus stop, bus arrived on time to take us to Lynemouth – off to a great start. Now all we needed was to find a cafe for breakfast to fuel us up for what we hoped would be 8 miles, thought would be 10 miles … but in fact turned out to be 11 miles. But no cafes in Lynemouth to be found … walked 2 miles to Cresswell along the coastal path – still no cafe! At this point the coastal path allowed us to walk along the beach for the majority of the way so it seemed breakfast was a no no. It turned out to be a day of unfuelled walking … but we more than made up for it when we reached Amble about 2pm and devoured some lunch.

Despite the hunger we loved the walk, part sand dunes, part shoreline walking (my favourite) – a day on the beach essentially. Fairly windy at times but the sun occasionally came out too.

*So wonderful how each village and town remember their local heroes – who gave their lives in the Wars*

*We’ve been learning a lot about Colliery living and working too!*

*Rambling into Amble* – *someone has built themselves a very nice house and put it on a hill for all to see!*

*Parked outside the ice-cream parlour in Amble … a severe case of mid-life crisis methinks!*

Amble has grown on us. When we arrived on Wednesday evening it seemed like a bit of a tired town – run down shops, no decent pubs or restaurants, nobody about … and we were thinking “oh no, three nights!!” But then we discovered more, including the quayside hospitality and shops, the local beach, a beautiful nearby nature reserve – so we take back all we said Amble. If you’re ever in town, we recommend ‘The Boathouse’ and ‘Fish Shack’ restaurants, the ice-cream parlour, The Coquet Tea Rooms (fab breakfast) and ‘The Cock and Bull’ micropub – a tiny local bar where men seem to take their dogs for a walk at night … and spend the evening sharing their stories with any visitors over a beer or two – we loved it.

*Our last night in Amble – eating at ‘The Fish Shack’ … busy table as near the Specials Board*

Friday 13th May 2022

Unlucky for some, but so far so good. We moved into our house-sit today in Blyth (when we eventually cracked the diversion)! Lovely house, all we need to make us extremely comfortable for the next week while we attempt to finish off walking this coastline.

*While we’re here in Blyth we’re looking after the lovely ‘Squidget.’*

Saturday 14th May 2022

Met some really friendly people at the Jesmond Dene parkrun – Steve and I had volunteered to do the tail walking – it was a good job really as I would have been at the back anyway – very few slow runners, no walkers and particularly hilly – what a joy!