Day 100 – Druridge Bay to Blyth

Rendezvous at Newcastle station is slightly delayed by the Good Samaritan (aka John) assisting an elderly woman to a connecting train before joining Ben and Gary – and the retrieved notebook (whoopee!) – for our century of days and the journey with Colin back to the country park at Druridge Bay. The route in the midday sunshine takes us past such iconic local sites as St James’ Park, the HQ of Greggs and a number of non-functioning wind turbines. We’re hoping to walk all the way to our overnight stop in Blyth which is a distance of around 19 miles. On a warm day and setting out just before 12:30, this could represent a bit of a challenge, but with sun cream applied and hats (or in Ben’s case a wet neckerchief) donned, we leave the park and are soon on the beach continuing our journey south. And excellent beach action it proves to be, with firm sand so we can maintain a good pace for almost 3 miles to Cresswell. We then need to head inland to get around/through the old power station and aluminium works at Lynemouth, but we’re soon heading back towards the sea around Newbiggin Golf Course. By the time we reach Newbiggin itself, it’s mid-afternoon, but we’ve already made heavy inroads into our water supplies so a stop is made at the Co-op to replenish them and also to buy ice creams (a very rare event) for John and Gary. On getting to the promenade on the south side of the town, we see a couple looking out to sea from some kind of construction in Newbiggin Bay. It’s difficult to work out how they got there, until we realise that the whole thing is a construction – it’s a sculpture of a couple known locally, it transpires, as Eb and Flo (ho ho). Anyway, we soon get back to the beach, and another stretch of beautiful sand, albeit initially with several traces of black dust from a coal seam which apparently emerges right by Newbiggin. Thoughts now turn to whether we are likely to reach the Commissioners Quay Inn at Blyth by early evening – in other words, when are we likely to have our first cider. This will depend on how and where we manage to cross two river mouths, those of the Wansbeck and the Blyth. Both are almost certain to involve diversions to inland bridges but, as we approach the Wansbeck, we can’t see many people who seem to have to leave the beach and, when we reach the river mouth, the tide is sufficiently far out for us to paddle across. Clearly, this involves several minutes being spent de-shodding, and then foot drying and re-shodding, but we still reckon that not having to go inland has saved us 20 or 30 minutes. Something which approaches confidence accordingly develops as we continue along the sands past Cambois (pronounced ‘Kemiss’ according to the Coast Path Book) that, even with a major diversion to cross the Blyth, we should reach the Commissioners within another couple of hours or so – i.e. by 7:15. And a diversion is indeed needed, and it is quite a major one of around a mile and a half inland and, having crossed the river, a similar distance back to the coast. A couple of possible short cuts are identified on John’s GPS and Ben’s OS map, but they’re not 100% clear and the potential reward is not sufficiently great as to make the risk worthwhile. We therefore follow the route in the Coast Path Book which takes us west, over a couple of main roads to Bedlington Station, south alongside the railway line, across the river at the Furnace Bridge, into Bedlington Country Park, and back east again along the south bank of the river. The approaches to and streets through Blyth are not too inspiring, but the relief we feel when getting to the quayside shortly after 7 o’clock and seeing the Commissioners in front of us is more the result of having walked a very sunny 19 miles in just over six and a half hours. In fact, according to John’s logger, the time spent walking is around 6 hours. After the long anticipated cider, check-in and showers/baths, supper is accompanied by one more cider, just one bottle of Shiraz, and no stickies. We must be tired.