Five Go Mad In Northumberland!

Actually there are eight of us but never mind!

Firstly a couple of pics of the area we staying in....

This is the track leading to the haunted farmhouse where we are staying.

A shop in Haltwhistle village ... ya got to laugh. 

Back to last night, where we all chilled in the house..... 

 

Dot made a yummy fish pie for dinner, then it was trivial pursuit till late - all washed down with lashings of wine ... 

Back to this morning, I took the doggies for a walk up to the farmhouse entrance ... 

It was blowing a gale!  Poor Bombo ! 

We then decided to all take a trip to Whitley Bay, where we stopped at Tesco on the way to buy some supplies for later ... someone had bit the dust in the carpark!

We soon arrived at Whitley Bay in gale-like conditions ... 

The famous eight then took a walk along the beach ... 

Where I had a blow out on one of my shoes!  Ah well they lasted me well ...

We stopped at a seafront cafe for lunch, where the first thing they did was to bring water and biscuits for the dogs!  

A large narrowboat was anchored off shore ... 

Ray checked out the page three chick but Elaine would have none of it ... 

The wind was causing havoc with Sammies hair ... 

As for Bombo ... 

Next stop was The Angel of the North ... a very impressive 200 ton structure welcoming us southerners to the north ... 

Look  at the  little people at the bottom ... 

We headed back to the farmhouse, swinging by the nearby bit of Hadrians wall.

It was a fair hike up the hill to get to it ...

But well worth it once we got there ... 

It is so remote up here ... 

and ...

... very ...

... cold and windy ! 

From the wall you can see our farmhouse and motorhome, just to the left of the woods in the centre ...

Zoom in and there we are ... 

Tonight we went down to Haltwhistle for a beer and came back to the farmhouse with take-away Indian to feed about thirty!

Tomorrow we are heading off as are Sue and Andy.  We are going to check out the Lake District for a couple of days before getting back to the boat.

We have had such a laugh up here with the Aston Marina hardcore crew, let's hope we can all do it again sometime.

19th March 2014 A Sad Day :-(

Tuesday morning started off normally, up early etc! We were going to go for a walk to the local Roman Fort for a  bit of culture, but before that Dot, Gordon and Ray drove off to the local village for some booze supplies, leaving Diane, Elaine me and the doggies at home.

As I mentioned in  Mondays blog Banjo started to wobble around when we walking around Newcastle, he has had a bad back before so we thought it was that.

About ten minutes after they had left Banjo started fitting, which he has never done before, but it went on for a very long time, Diane rang Dot to tell them to come back. Banjo recovered from the fit but was very agitated and crying.

As soon as the others came back they whisked him off to the local vet, where they diagnosed he had suffered from a stroke, and then he had another attack in the vet. Unfortunately there was no choice but to put the little man to sleep.

He was a lovely dog and was loved by all who met him. he was a well known character doing his rounds of Aston Marina.

I am sure he will be boasting in doggie heaven of his travels and adventures.

RIP Banjo.   

The pics below were taken on Monday.

Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy

Rather than sleep in the house we have been sleeping in the motorhome with the menagerie ... it gets a bit crowded in the bed at the rear of the van, so Sammie spent the night with me up in the bow double bed!  Here he is having just woken up ...

After we had brekky we all decided to head off to Newcastle on the train as it was raining in this neck of the woods and apparently not over in Newcastle !

We took the vintage Volvo wagon down to Haltwhistle railway station ... I drew the short straw and ended up in the back with the dogs ...

Haltwhistle station and very original signal box ...

Waiting for the train in the rain ...

By the time we arrived at Newcastle we were all a bit peckish, so into the pub we went ... and what a good one it was and very dog friendly too!

We had to have a group selfie ...

And a panoramic shot ...

We all went for the fish platters ('fishy on a little dishy'), great value at £5.50 a head!

It was a lovely pub and of course dog-friendly, which was good as we had three dogs with us.

We then took off for a walk around Geordieville, with Ray aka 'Tom Tom' leading the way ...

We passed by some historic sites ...

ooer missus Picasa is fun. 

Back to normality ...

The Black Gate ...

All of a sudden we were back in Sydney!

We had walked for a few miles when Elaine went lame and Banjo hurt his back and started to wobble a bit, so Elaine and Diane returned to a nearby pub whilst the rest of us headed off to the Millennium Bridge ...

Passing a building that looked like a caterpillar ...

Finally ending up at the Millennium Bridge ...

We walked across the bridge, taking a pic of our shadows.  I also spotted a seal but was a bit too slow to get a shot!

It is a most impressive bridge and how lucky were we that they opened it just for us!

It pivots on these huge bearings ...

Over she goes ...

A bit further ...

That's it fully open ...

It has a walkway and cycle way ...

We all rendezvoused back at the pub, and then headed back up the hill to the railway station.

The dogs were .... dog tired and enjoyed a nice relaxing trip back to Haltwhistle ...

These two were having a quiet moment together waiting for their train!

Frogs yesterday, chavs today, there must be something in the water up here!

And that was that, another excellent adventure comes to an end.

Tomorrow Andy and Sue will be joining us, the Aston Marina Hardcore boaters are back together again ... well, apart from Roly and Bev that is :(