Having read the previous “Have bike, wife and baby will travel” article with holiday snaps of France, I thought 'great idea', I’ll take the bike on the holiday to Northumberland where wife Sarah and I intended to gently introduce our new, energetic young spaniel Billy to one of our favourite pastimes, hill walking. The plan was that during the week I would sneak in some early morning rides around the scenic Northumberland National Park before getting the walking boots on.

Steve in Northumberland 400

Unfortunately, we hadn’t counted on the British weather. No sooner than we had arrived at our delightful cottage in the hamlet of Elsdon, the heavens opened and it rained…..and rained…..and rained for 60 hours!  Now I don’t mind cycling in a little rain, but this was serious rain and gusting 65mph winds. As you probably saw in the media, much of the North East received over a month’s rainfall in 48 hours resulting in severe flooding across the region.

We ended up spending the early part of the week visiting castles; Dunstanburgh, Chillingham, Alnwick, Bamburgh, etc (no shortages of castles in the boarders!), NT properties (Craigside) and probably too much time in pubs (the Good Beer guide came in handy!). Finally, the rain eased off and I did manage to get both cycling shoes and walking boots on in the second half of the week. Having the bike meant that rather than our normal circular walks; I could drive the car with bike on the roof rack to the intended destination and then cycle back to the house to pick up Sarah and Billy. I love the region having spent three memorable years at Newcastle upon Tyne in the early Eighties doing my 1st degree (Chemistry) and it is stunning countryside with something we don’t have in abundance in Beds and Camridgeshire - hills!

with dog 400
    
The cycle highlight was a length of the Pennine Cycleway (Sustrans route 68) near the Otterburn ranges and the walking highlight was a 25km walk between Elsdon to Rothbury via the Harwood forest, along the Simonside ridge above the flooded Coquet valley and finishing off on a section of the St Oswald Way path. We also managed a stretch of the Hadrian Wall walk including a part (a particularly wet part) of the Pennine way, and two sections of the Northumberland coastal path.

Anyway, after a wet holiday, I’m looking forward to a dry and sunny Sportive on the 7th!

Steve P