Today we were moving on to Berwick-upon-Tweed. Earliest check in time for our new site is 13:00 and we needed to leave our Dunstan Hill campsite by about 11:00, So, with about a 1-hour drive, we’d need to kill some time somewhere.

First, though, we occupied ourselves before departure time by lugging my camera bag and tripod bag down to the beach at Embleton Bay, once again, thinking that mid-tide [about 10:30] might give us water sloshing around the rocks. However, when we arrived the flooding tide was still way short of the rocks. Francine, however, found me a photogenic formation of green shelves pointing out to sea to play with. I got what I think is one decently illuminated shot before the light faded and the shelf became rather dull. Still, one is all you need.

We wound our way back once again into a headwind and packed up Frodo getting him ready for the road. Taking the slower coast road, since we were not in a hurry, we picked our way through Beadnell followed by Seahouses, failing to find a decent stopping point. Eventually we found a decent roadside parking area with a few cars and spaces available. We bailed out. A style led over a fence, through some long grass and down onto the beach just opposite Inner Farne. We were just a spit south of Bamburgh Castle.

On the beach we had a good view of Inner Farne and some of the rock formations on the coast made for an interesting photographic subject. We meandered up and down the sand for half an hour or so, occasionally being sandblasted as the now familiar wind whipped the grains up into a storm. We were here once before many years ago and I well remember the sand blowing across the shore then.

We’d killed almost enough time so we returned to Frodo to continue our short journey. Bamburgh itself was heaving, not unexpectedly. I’m going to make myself very unpopular by calling Bamburgh Castle an ugly lump of a building. Attractive it ain’t so I was quite happy to keep driving straight through but we noted that there were a few parking areas that accepted motorhomes had we wanted to stop. Bravo!

Eventually we ended up in Berwick itself where, to use a little more time, we called in the the local ASDA which had a handy-dandy fuel station. We’ve driven 300 miles all the way from home and still had 3/8ths of a tank, which was quite pleasing. Topping up the fridge after topping up the tank completed our stop.

We checked-in shortly after 14:00 and chose our pitch. Our neighbours were absent and their caravan awning was doing its best to be absent as well. Two of three poles were down and the canopy was flapping alarmingly in the strong wind. I reset the two naughty poles and tightened the guy ropes. One pole remained upright but the middle pole once again collapsed. Our neighbours finally returned and wisely decided to take the awning down altogether.

The winds in these parts really have been brutal for the week that we’ve been here.

Frodo’s grey water drain tap is completely blocked yet again. We’d bought a bottle of motorhome-friendly grey waste tank and pipe unblocker and poured some in before driving up here. My suspicion is that it has started to break crusty bits off the inside of the tank and that those bits are now flowing into and blocking the pathetically narrow drain tap. Once again, I was lying on the ground manually draining the waste tank. JOY!

Waste tank duly drained, we decided on another coastal walk to, surprisingly enough, another pub. This time we headed north from our campsite on the coast path up to Low Newton to visit the Ship Inn. The route took us mainly around the Embleton golf course but we managed to avoid being hit on the head by a golf ball. Francine, having a thing for beach huts, was distracted by some in the sand dunes surrounding the golf course. They are actually Embleton Links bungalows and were erected by golfers wishing to stay in the area. They’ve now been gifted to the National Trust.

After about three miles we arrived in Low Newton-by-the-Sea where we found a very attractive setting for the pub, a sort of courtyard affair surrounded by white cottages. We wandered up to the pub which was manically busy where I joined a very slow-moving queue for the bar. I do wish people wouldn’t keep ordering coffee – it’s labour intensive and takes far too long. I very nearly gave up; life is too short. I did eventually get served and ordered a couple of crab sandwiches to go with our drinks.

There are far too many dogs on this planet and most of them seemed to be here at the Ship Inn today. One particularly hyper King Charles Spaniel seemed intent on barking at anything that moved and set off the rest of the pack in a raucous cacophony. Nothing a hefty tap on the head with a shillelagh wouldn’t fix, I’m sure.

With what seemed like more dogs than people, and there were too many of those, after our drinks we made our way back along the coast path again to return to the relative sanity of Frodo. It was blowing a friggin’ gale again, which I am finding very tiresome.

When we returned we found that we had been joined by another amusing camping unit. This one was a clearly elderly caravan but oh my what a colour. I couldn’t quite work out whether this was the original colour or whether it had been given a respray. If it had been a respray then it was a plum crazy choice of colour. What really amused me was putting a wheel clamp on it, as if anyone would want to nick it. {Maybe it’s a collectors item.]

There was another interesting arrival but this one actually looked quite cute. I didn’t get close enough to find out what it was/is. That tow car wouldn’t even know it was there.

Well, it is that time of year, even this year which has seen record-breaking heat and drought in many parts. Whereas pretty much all the grass down south is crispy brown, it is noticeable up here in Northumberland that the sheep in the fields have green grass to eat. Some of what kept it green arrived mid morning in the form of some moderately heavy rain.

So, our morning was spent keeping Frodo company and staying dry. The highlight of the morning was seeing the back of the unsociable wood burning stove and tent as it pulled out and moved on. We’d be able to breathe easier.

Our afternoon was forecast to be drier and a little brighter and so it turned out. We went to stretch our legs with a walk along the road to Embleton, a shade over a mile away. There is a route through the adjacent woodland, complete with treacherous, slippery tree roots, followed by a footpath through a field. Given the morning’s rain, though, dicing with that was unappealing so we dodged traffic instead.

We had a quick exchange with the waiting campsite staff as we prepared to walk out. Given the weekend exodus we thought they’d have a quieter day. Not so, they were expecting 45 arrivals. Yikes! Camping in France really quietens down half way through September with about 50% of the campsites closing down and here we are still as busy as ever.

There’s a village farm shop in Embleton that is open on a Sunday until 17:00. That gave us a little interest, as well as a reason for the walk, on what would otherwise have been a closed kind of day. We invested in a pot of Grey Poupon mustard, just in case I ended up making one of Frodo’s Stroganovs, and I couldn’t resist a pack of Bamburgh Bangers – good sausages are so hard to find and these just may fit the bill.

On the entertainment front of an otherwise dull day, we’ve had an amusing VW Campervan turn up. The red pop-up roof surround atop a blue van was bad enough but when the windscreen cover went on …

There are bus stops right outside the entrance to our campsite. Buses to and from Alnwick are more or less every 2 hours. We decided to go for the bus at 09:30 which would get us in at 10:15, planning to return on the 14:10 departure from Alnwick bus station. Quite what I was going to do in a town for four hours remained a bit of a mystery.

Modern bus travel, in some areas at least, is interesting. Francine was able to watch our intended bus making its way along the coast road towards our stop on a (mostly) live map on her phone. I’ve managed a similar trip from my favourite Norfolk campsite to ride into Norwich. The bus, a double decker, duly arrived and we got an upstairs front seat to watch the countryside go by.

The bus called in to Craster, which was an interesting side trip. It’s a there-and-back route requiring the bus driver to perform a 3-point turn at a junction of roads in Craster so that he can drive back out the way he came in. Once in Alnwick itself, the bus turned left to avoid the attractive low archway in the old town walls. We duly arrived at Alnwick bus station right outside a Morrisons supermarket.

Francine was familiar with Alnwick. Our first port of call was walking back to Barter Books which we had driven past on the way in. Barter Books is described as:

A rambling, quirky, secondhand book store with open fires, armchairs, model trains and a simple café.

Barter Books is built in what was a grand old railway station – grand due to the presence of the Dukes of Northumberland and Alnwick Castle, apparently. Much of the premises is built on what were the old station platforms, now enclosed. We headed for the “simple café” to top up our caffeine levels following our morning bus ride.

I’m not a great one for browsing endlessly at books on shelves so this was, for me, something of a very pleasant but alien environment. There were two computer terminals provided for searching if you knew what you were looking for but other than that wandering aimlessly browsing would appear to be the way forward. I did have an aimless wander and spotted a 2-volume set of books on British Beetles dating from, I think, the late 1950s. It was selling for a cool £120 or so. I wasn’t tempted but, being two volumes, it did put me in mind of the old adage that “God had an inordinate fondness of beetles”, there being almost 400,000 species worldwide.

What to do next? We left Barter Books and began our return walk back through the archway on the town walls. A market was on in Market Square. Other than a fruit and veg stall, I saw little else to entertain me, however.

I was intent on looking at the various hostelries in search of a likely lunch venue. Alnwick has a local brewery so I was keen to avoid the endless parade of ubiquitous Eurofizz pumps – Peroni, Moretti, and the like, along with one of the more recent marketing cons,  Madri – “El Alma de Madrid”. It was developed and is brewed by Molson in the UK having never seen anything of Madrid. Molson does, though, have a stake in a Toledo craft brewer, La Sagra, and I believe that two of their brewers may have had some input into the recipe.

For lunch, we eventually settled on The Market Tavern which had its own label Amber beer brewed by the Alnwick brewery and very good it was, too. The kipper paté for a light lunch was also very good.

Well fed and watered, we eventually made our way back to the bus station via a somewhat disappointing Morrisons supermarket. Failing to find any ingredients that appealed, we invested £6.99 in a ready roasted chicken, clearly not free range, to save on the cooking later. It’s amazing how being lazy makes you lower your standards. Unlike most French rotisseries, there was no free range option.

Our bus ferried us back to the campsite via another 3-point turn in Craster. We even managed to spot the correct bus stop on unfamiliar roads, though clearly seeing the array of camping units from the vantage point of the upper deck helped.

I found more on the accursed wood burning stove in the tent, of which there are a distressing number available. One piece of splendid advertising bollocks includes the claim:

… and the long flue helps to transport smoke and fumes away from the cooking area.

That’s as maybe; it may well transport the smoke and fumes away from your cooking area. What it certainly does is transport the smoke and fumes into the cooking and living areas of your neighbouring fellow campers. Even being several units away we could smell it inside Frodo for much of the evening. Talk about anti-social.

I thought we may have lucked out with the tides and the view to Dunstanburgh Castle; high tide this morning was 08:15. So, we left fairly early, me armed with camera, tripod and filters to check out the view from the beach. After our 30-minute walk avoiding those treacherous tree root, it turned out that high tide was too high – all the photogenic boulders were completely submerged. I think we’d need half tide but even then, as I feared, I’m pretty sure I’d need those Wellies I haven’t got to stand in the water. So I think it’s a non starter even with the correct timing.

We returned for a consolation breakfast of bacon, eggs and mushrooms.

After our welcome breakfast we had excess calories to use up so we opted for a windy walk along the coastal path into Craster – about 4½ miles including another start across those awkward tree roots. There are two attractions in Craster, the Jolly Fisherman pub and L. Robson and Sons traditional Craster smokehouse, well known for its Craster kippers. It does smoked salmon as well.

After slogging our way in a very stiff off-shore wind past a golf course followed by Dunstanburgh Castle, our first port of call was naturally to seek refreshment and lunch at the Jolly Fisherman, which overlooks Craster harbour. My spirits lifted considerably when I saw that the pub had Timothy Taylor’s :Landlord on tap. The menu provided a second lift when we spotted that it included some crab delights: Francine opted for their Devilled Crab on Toast while I stayed more traditional going for their “Famous Crab Sandwich”. We sat outside in the beer garden enjoying the sea view and the crab. Both choices were excellent.

Before starting our return trek, we called in to the smokehouse. Cooking kippers in a campervan/caravan/tent is not a recommended course of action. Instead, avoiding the familiar smoked salmon paté we bought a pot of kipper paté, just to be a bit different.

Our return trek was extremely unpleasant because it was almost directly into an ever stronger headwind. The consolation in this direction is that we were now looking at the sunlight southern side of Dunstanburgh Castle. 

The coastal path was very busy with many more walkers being battered by the wind. One witty female golfer remarked that it was “a bit breezy”. After getting on for an hour of this we couldn’t wait to stop. Getting back to Frodo was a considerable relief.

We arrived at the Camping and Caravanning Club Dunstan Hill campsite at 13:20 after a blissfully trouble free 195-mile journey from Newark-on-Trent. We’ve got a so-called “jumbo grass pitch” with electric hook-up, which was all that was available when we booked it. The pitch is a bit worn and uneven in the middle but we could park Frodo over that. Then I discovered that my beloved spirit level to get Frodo settled is missing. What the hell have I done with that? I’m pretty religious about putting it away in one of his storage bins.

We had resorted to eye aided by a glass of water to level Frodo when Francine remembered that you could get spirit level phone apps. Great idea, except that one of them wanted me to calibrate it by placing it on a known level surface. Arghh! I haven’t got a level surface – that’s the whole point. At least the app had a default setting and it reckoned that Frodo was dead level in both axes. This, I doubt. When I get home to a level kitchen worksurface, I’ll check it.

There is a path, littered with dodgy tree roots, through the woodland beside the campsite which takes you down, ultimately via some safer ground, towards the beach on the north side of Dunstanburgh Castle. The view should be interesting because there are well known rather stereotyped (by now) photographs featuring blurred moving water flowing around the rocks in the foreground of the castle. An exploratory walk was required.

It’s about a 25-minute walk. When we hit the beach it was low tide and the rocks were all exposed. However, it was obvious that if I wanted to point a camera over the rocks towards the castle, I’d need a pair of Wellington boots, which I failed to pack. Nonetheless, I took a line-up phone snap just for the hell of it.

After spending a little time on the beach enjoying the views, we returned to our campsite, There is a unit on the campsite which, quite frankly, defies belief. There is a tent with … wait for it … A wood burner stove within, its flue sticking through a hole in the roof canvas. The hole has some sort of protective collar around it and there’s a flap to keep out rain (once you’ve removed the flue, presumably). We were utterly gobsmacked. There’s a sign declaring “only gas BBQs”, so no naked flame barbies, but these people have a bloody woodburner inside a tent. Admittedly the flames are (should be) contained in a box but …?

Having had to delay our normal September ferry crossing to the continent because of medical appointments, we’ve decided to surround said medical appointment with a couple of trips in the UK.

The first of these trips ( I refuse to that awful word “staycation”) is visiting Northumberland for 12 days. Francine has booked us into the Camping and Caravan Club site at Dunstan Hill, almost within sight of Dunstanburgh Castle. The site is 290 miles from home. In the days of yore I’d have thought nothing of dragging our caravan 290 miles in one day but now it has become less appealing, even though we’re now using a motorhome and not towing. So, with Frodo’s supplier being 100 miles away en route and having a free overnight facility for customers we booked in for a night to break the journey. [We’ve also booked in on the return journey for the same reason.]

We were in no rush so we broke Frodo out of prison at about 11:00. We’d need food so called in to ASDA in Milton Keynes for supplies and to fill Frodo’s tank. Fully provisioned, we hit the road at about 12:30.

An easy 2-hour drive got us to Brownhills in Newark-on-Trent where we got Frodo settled in their overnight area. It isn’t a particularly attractive area but it’s really quite similar to a regular Aire de Camping Car on the continent – hardstanding with electricity, water and dumping points. There are even toilet and washing facilities and all for free. Excellent.

One of the other appealing features here has been the Beefeater restaurant attached to a Premier Inn just a short walk away across the road. When Frodo has been booked in for a service, we usually eat over there for simplicity.

We planned to do just that today and went over for Francine to have a steak and me to have a burger. Several things were unavailable. Moves were clearly afoot. We knew that some Beefeaters were to close down but it seems that everything was to change. There will be a new Premier Inn in Newark, with a restaurant attached BUT the restaurant will now be for residents of the Premier Inn only. Cutting out passing foot traffic seems like an odd decision; this restaurant clearly gets a considerable trade from customers at Brownhills Motorhomes.

We learned that the change will take place before our return trip so we’ll have to be on self-catering. Bother!