Its seems ages since we last went on holiday, but in reality it was only mid-July so one shouldn't grumble. And as we were so impressed with the Northumberland Coast and Alexandra Cottage in Beadnell, that's exactly where we would be heading again for another week. Yes it's a 190 mile drive, but most of it is motorway and dual carriageway so apart from all the stretches of roadworks (and they are a plenty), it's quite a steady drive.
It was around 2 1/2hrs later than we arrived at the cottage, we'd battled past the Metro Centre, fought the shopping queues in Sainsbury's and claimed our prize; a week in Beadnell. We spent the next 45 minutes or so unpacking, then before settling down for the evening we put on our jackets and headed down to the bay as we could see the kite surfers over the tops of the dunes.
We were packed up and ready to go around 9:30am, so after a couple of parcel drop-off's we were on the M1 heading north. The weather was gorgeous, a few fluffy clouds adding to the blue canvass and a temperature of around 19c as we arrived in Beamish around mid-day; perfect weather for us, not too warm and nice and dry.
Donna had been to Beamish when she was younger, and I'd always wanted to visit. In fact, there had been a few occasions when we'd been holidaying on the North York Moors or Coast and we'd contemplated driving up, but never got round to it; mainly due to the distance. However, as we were passing within about 5 miles of the place it made an ideal stop-off on our journey up towards the top end of Northumberland.
At £18.50 each it did seem a little steep when you compare it to many other attractions, but if I'm being honest I didn't realise how big the site was and how much there is to see; so considering that, and the fact that it allows you entry for 12 months, it's not that bad. In fact, the title of my post gives you a clue to the fact that we managed to see little over half of the site before we needed to get on our way. It was around 3pm and we were just about to enter the 1900's Pit Village where we made the decision to leave the rest of the site for another day; assuming that is, that we come back up here before September 2016.
Being a Friday afternoon, we knew that the roads would be busy and we had to get through the roadworks on the A1 alongside the Metro Centre, plus we also had to stop at Alnwick to do some shopping so it was probably better than we set off on the next 50 miles or so of our drive.
It was a great sight to see, it was windy and the waves were rolling in, and there must have been 10 or so kite surfers skimming over the water, one way, then the next. And mixed in with lots of jumps as the kites lifted them up about the surf. We spent about half an hour watching them before heading back to the cottage for our evening meal. A great start to the week.
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