Tuesday 27 September 2016

Day 6

The breakfast room was an intriguing space, in keeping with the style I'd previously mentioned, once again encountering walkers here and there, traveled from near and far. (I assume they traveled by plane from there respective continents rather than walked)



This was my first day back at walking, because the route was nearing towards the Tyne there it was generally more populated than previous days, still mostly countryside but there where more options on the way for commuting back if I where to have to many difficulties with my leg. Once finished this days walk either all three of us or just mum and morph would get the bus back to Corbridge where we'd stay a second night, then commute back to the same spot the following day to finish the journey.

I was happy to have a go at walking again, my knee obviously had reservations which I'd pay the price for during the three weeks afterwards. But all strapped and geared up we made our way into the village centre to take a taxi we'd booked a few miles north to pick up on the official route.

In the two images below you'll observe a Super Nintendo built into a brick wall, I'm afraid that's all the context I have for that one.




The ground ahead was relatively flat and although my knee didn't show very encouraging signs to begin with, the following miles where fairly tame and made for a pleasant pace. With the exception maybe for a few close encounters with curious cows once again. Morph got by well in-spite the cows unwavering curiosity in him.

The weather was overcast but little or no actual rain, quite refreshing really, ideal for walking infact. We pasted further Roman historical sites of one form or another, all pretty much commandeered by sheep and cattle, and I recall the frequent sound of aircraft flying low overhead made a bit jarring by the overcast sky that obscured any visual sign of them. The rain did eventually increase into a heavy drizzle that then varied back and forth but when it neared good time to stop and eat we pushed on to the next nearest village across the A69 and found a convenient little shelter there. While eating we reviewed the option for me to take the bus from there, it had been a good few hours walk by this point and although my leg hadn't made any sort of miraculous recovery, it hadn't got notably worse either. After looking at the map I decided to keep at it, worse case scenario I could find some transportation back nearer the river which was one steep hill and a bit of woodland away.


So we walked through the village coming out on a defending incline into a large valley where the Tyne lay with an impressive row of houses as we edged down the road into the woodland.

Edging down the hill was a bit of a task with the knee but we we're making good time so it was all a pleasant pace really, in-fact this was probably the easiest of the walks factoring all that into account, there was a big change of scenery throughout but perhaps with it ended that day nearing the outskirts of Newcastle, (the overall destination) there was the added scene of satisfaction as well, unlike day 3, walking up and down, up and down, up and bloody down with sod all sign of anything encouraging once the novelty of the views wore off. 




As we neared the bottom of the hill we came through part of the university property and then very briefly skirted around a golf course taking us finally to the rivers edge. The river itself wasn't practically accessible at this point being at the bottom of a long a steep ledge, but the sight of it was enough to put morph into a frenzy, scrambling about in search of a stick. The river did look very nice on a mild misty day like that, and a little further down our path morph finally found a way in. But not via the kind of terrain either of us where going to even consider, so he just kind of waded in and started at us hopefully for a while. (As you'll see in a photo below.) 


The ground eventually became more tarmaced as we approached a recreational park, sooner or later we'd find a bridge taking us over the river towards the town we planed on computing back from. But as we made our way I stopped off at the outdoor gym, it really frustrates me there art more of these, at least in Kent, obviously my legs had more than enough to keep them busy this particular occasion but doing a few pull ups and what have you was quite satisfying, perhaps because it gave me the fleeting chance to occupy myself with limbs that still worked properly. 

We crossed that bridge in the end and with a little help from google maps took the path up into (Can;t remember name of town). It was a steep and long hill but it was the last and the mood was good. As we neared the main road with our bus stop, we made our way through a long and narrow park, full of playground and sports facilities for all ages, for what was generally a general kind of town but coming from Kent, this place along with a few others I've seen while up north just seemed to have more on offer for people, and more to keep people of all ages entertained and busy. The cynicism in me suggests that as more big money trickles in from gigantic financial behemoths like with the expansion of London, more and more of those publicly accessible things that give a little more purpose to this or that person, is just another asset to capitalise on. But then by contrast what seems here as a not particularly wealthily area, doesn't seem to have many people on a loose end. There's defiantly less sense of community where I currently live, and that's down to a bunch of things, but I can't be sure that if there where walks this popular in Kent, the walkers would be met with the same level of casual hospitality, at least not in the lesser known areas.  

And with that we made it to the bus stop with a fairly short wait until we hoped on board back to Corbridge. (Around 5-6pm) I recall seeing an adult women being pushed into the nearby Coop on a trolley, voluntarily it appeared. That's all else I rememberer. When then returned to the same B&B and enjoyed another meal at the same dog friendly pub that evening. I tried enrolling onto my MA with the pubs Wifi, and then saw some weird documentary and isolated GP practises before hitting the sack. 





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