Newbiggin-by-the-Sea

Finally, a good night's sleep, managing to sleep until 7am. And a beautiful morning. Yesterday's rain had cleared all of the dust and haze to leave a clear and calm sky. Made a cup of tea and wrote up the previous day's blog.

I really do need a shower and a wash though. So I wander off to find the nearby leisure centre where I believe I can get a shower for £1. The leisure centre is a grey anonymous looking building, but inside it is bright and spotlessly clean and before long I am also fresh and spotlessly clean.

Outside the leisure centre was a wooden lifeboat under a substantial canopy. This was the first Tyne lifeboat and Britain's second oldest surviving lifeboat. In its 60 years of service it saved 1028 lives, amazing for a volunteer crewed open rowing boat.

I walk back through South Marine Park, and the cafe is open. I take this information back to Vera in the van and we decide to go there for breakfast. A good choice, the food is excellent and we sit outside to eat, looking over the park and ornamental lake with ducks, geese and a solitary swan.

Then it's back to Bents Park to pack up the van and head north. To get us heading in the right direction we somewhat randomly put Newbiggin-by-the-Sea into the satnav. Through the Tyne tunnel, which Vera found very discomforting, the thought of being under all that water.

Newbiggin turned out to be a charming village/small town, with a long sandy beach, selection of shops and an art trail.

The lifeboat station is the oldest operational lifeboat boathouse in the UK. We look around. The walls are lined with boards listing the boats helped and lives saved. I always find it very moving, thinking of those people launching into the wild sea in an open boat to try and help friends or strangers in need.

The local museum was also very informative, and at £2.50 per person why would you not look round? And a very nice cafe, with very nice triple decked victoria sponge cake.

Newbiggin also boasts Britain's first permanent offshore sculpture, Couple

We are so charmed by the place we consider staying for the night. We go into The Coble, a lovely community run pub, to see whether they would be doing food later. Sadly not. And the barman warned us about the local Indian restaurant, which did very substandard food unless you asked for something not on the menu, in which case they would discuss what you wanted and cook something nice.

So we move on, up the coast, to Low Newton. I know that there is a delightful pub and micro-brewery here. We park up at the car park above the village. There are scary signs warning of the large fines for overnight camping, sleeping, or cooking in the car park. So we move to a nearby parking area by the roadside and walk down to the village.

Sadly the pub was closing at 6, but enough time for a couple of pints and a long chat to a father and daughter from Kendal who had been coming to this area for over 30 years. There was a hop vine growing up the side of the building, which was home to a large colony of very noisy sparrows which Vera fed from the birdseed that she always carries with her

With no food available in the pub, we return to the van and cook up sardine pasta.

Here is Vera, grating cheese by the light of the setting sun

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