After re-pitching Guillaume to face into the wind in the middle of last night, hopefully without disturbing too many of our neighbours, we finally got some sleep after 3:00 AM had disappeared behind the advancing hands of the clock. The wind was unabated this morning, which came later for us than had originally been intended. Consequently, Francine missed her dawn appointment with Bamburgh castle.
After our late start, though still v. windy, the day had some brightness to it so we visited the beach anyway. Other than the fact that there were quite a few people walking quite a few dogs, the beach was a little like the Sahara in miniature: the strong north-westerly wind was blowing sandstorms along the surface of the beach and up across the dunes which lie between it and the town. There were also little miniature sand dunes on the beach complete with sand shadows on the downwind side. Sand racing along before the wind is difficult to capture on pixels but Francine’s shot may give an idea. Incidentally, that’s one of the Farne Islands on the horizon.
As with most campsites, our little farm site has various tourist information leaflets. One such is for Doddington Dairy which makes ice creams but, more importantly and of particular interest to cheese-aholic Franco, six different “artisan” cheeses. The last time I came across the word artisan, it was used in relation to over-priced sandwiches at a service area on the M6 as we headed north at the start of this meteorologically disastrous trip. Nonetheless, finding Doddington would provide and excuse for us to investigate inland a little so we set off with my digestive juices exhibiting eager anticipation. We found Doddington – blink and you miss it – but could we find the Doddington dairy? No! Francine looked on the info leaflet for a postcode to stick into Sally Satnav and spotted, in small print beneath the “get in touch” section:
Sorry, we do not have a visitors centre at the moment and we are not open to the public.
Hmm. What’s the point in an expensive, glossy, trifold, double-sided professionally produced flier if no one can’t visit you, pray tell? Grrr!
Disappointed, we re-planned and headed back coastward for the Holy Island causeway, just to go “ooh, ah” and say we’d seen it, though, since we knew the tide was in and we wouldn’t be able to drive across. It made an interesting comparison to the passage de gois which is a similar flooding road to an island off the west coast of France. Naturally, people behave much the same at both by wandering up to the tide’s edge. However, whereas the French motorists tend to ignore the road closed warnings and cross spraying plumes of salt water anyway, Brits are much more controlled and wait.
I noticed in the distance that Bamburgh castle now appeared to have favourable light on it so we called in on our way back to Guillaume and spent an interesting half hour or so making up for having missed the early morning show. The potential feeling of solitude offered by such scenery is, of course, lost by Joe Public and his/her blasted dogs again, of course, but Photoshop may help in that regard. 😉
The blasted wind was still pounding us but it is forecast to abate overnight for tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
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