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.
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