Great North Fun Day 13

Today I decided for certain that there really must be a God.  Not because I had some amazing 'Saul on the way to Damascus (or in this case Whitley Bay) blinding flash of light' experience but because who else could be up there using their immaculate sense of timing to switch on the rain each time we stepped outside a building and then switching the sun back on as soon as we'd got ourselves a coffee. Oh yes, He's up there alright and I'm not sure I like his sense of humour.

St Mary's Lighthouse

The rhythm of today went something like this - drive, walk, rain, run, café, sun, walk, rain, run, amusements, sun, walk, rain, run, drive, sun, walk, rain, run, café, sun, walk, rain, run, drive, sit in car taking pictures of lightening over St Mary's lighthouse, drive back. In the sun. At least we'd taken our waterproofs.

To be honest that was pretty much it for the day. The coffee was delicious and at lunchtime we found a wonderful old seafront cafe that hadn't changed in 30 years or more. We had proper old fashioned milkshakes and Club biscuits - though they weren't quite as chocolatey as we remembered them. I wish there were more places like this around with a bit more character. So much better than the bland franchised coffee emporiums we see everywhere these days.

In the evening we treated ourselves to our first meal out this trip - I'm not counting the chips in Stockton. We found a spectacular little Italian restaurant and although the staff were clearly more familiar with Newcastle than Naples we could not fault the food of the service and my wonderfully garlicky chicken has ensured full protection from vampires for the remainder of the trip.

Tomorrow we continue north and plan to head up through Craster to Beadnell Bay just south of Bambrugh. Oh, and in case you were worried, most of the washing dried beautifully.