In between celebrating birthdays in Scotland, and going to Whitby, ChrisC and I jaunted briefly around Northumberland. We stopped in Alnwick, and managed not to go to Alnwick Castle (it was slightly closed and largely overrun with schoolkids), but we did manage lots of other castles. And Alnwick Gardens. And, of course, Barter Books.

I remember a lovely holiday with my best friend and her family in Northumberland when I was about ten, and I duly dragged ChrisC along to do many of the same things we did then.

I have an ongoing observation that it'd be really nice if guidebooks/websites/etc gave you a grasp of how long a particular attraction is good for. Obviously it'll be different from person to person, but I could maybe learn after a while that for any museum I could double, or halve, the standard time to "do" it.

Anyway, in the course of a two and a half day holiday we jammed in the following itinerary:

Day 1: Drive to the car park outside Craster, walk up to Dunstanburgh Stead and round the golf course to the beach and the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle. Drive to Holy Island, wander round the island a bit, take in Lindisfarne Castle, and escape before the causeway goes under water.

Day 2: Head up to Seahouses, and take a short boat tour round the Farne Islands to see the seal pups. Continue up the coast to Bamburgh to look at their castle.

Day 3: Hang out in Barter Books until Alnwick Gardens open, explore the gardens, and jam in a quick stroll along the links outside Alnmouth before popping ChrisC on an East Coast mainline train home.

Dunstanburgh is a ruined castle, and its distinctive, snaggle-toothed silhouette is one of the photos I remember taking aged ten.



We walked the long way round, under a whinstone ridge[*] and through farmland. Though cold and very windy, it was a brilliantly sunny day of bright blue skies. English Heritage charge you all of £4.20 to get in to Dunstanburgh, and if you're easily entertained there's a good hour of exploring to be had. On walking back, I had a pair of Craster kippers in a bun :)

Lindisfarne Castle sits on top of a rock at one of end of is-it-isn't-it isthmus-with-ideas Holy Island.



Having been a proper military defence for hundreds of years, Lindisfarne Castle had an extravagant arts-and-crafts makeover in the 1900s and is now a rather appealing bijou castle residence. No one lives there any more, but many of the rooms are furnished in a style that makes you think you could just settle yourself down on the sofa, or sit down in the dining room for a meal. It's quite small, and has about two hours of fun in it.

The big appeal of the Farne Islands is the birdlife[**], but it's the wrong time of year for birdspotting there. Instead, there are seal pups galore. The wildlife wardens mark them with a splash of dye to allow them to track numbers, and this year the dye is yellow which gives the pups a rather jaundiced air.



The boat tours are, of course, advertised with a time (we took the shortest, at an hour and a half). Parents should note that despite expectations, this is not a good way to entertain your kids at October half term. Our boat was full of cold, miserable, bored and (in one instance) seasick children.

Bamburgh Castle looks massive from the outside, and we'd assumed that it would be a "whole day castle". Actually, quite a lot of its insides are converted into private apartments (you can rent one! and live! in a castle!) so the actual open-to-the-public parts aren't extensive. I think we spent around three hours there, including a quick lunch, though the grounds would have been more fun if it weren't so cold and windy. They also usually have resident archaeologists digging for your pleasure, but the trenches were all sheeted up for the winter.

Barter Books is an amazing place - a second hand bookshop in the disused Alnwick Station. It has open fires, a coffee machine (with honesty box), model trains running round the tops of the book cases, some nice murals, and books. Shelves and shelves and shelves of books. Time spent is totally dependent on your attitude to bookshops :)

Alnwick Gardens are lovely. They're not botanical gardens, they're just pleasure gardens - with sculptures, water features, more water features and beautiful views. They also have a Poison Garden (viewing by guided tour only) featuring plants which are in some way toxic or harmful. Slightly worrying that some of the plants live in artistic metal cages, and even more worrying that many of them do not, and are extremely common garden plants. The Gardens were good for half a day, even though it was the sort of weather that can really only be described as "not actually raining" most of the time.

If you want to eat in The Treehouse, the Gardens' fabulous-looking treehouse restaurant, book well in advance :(

Of course, there's masses of stuff we didn't see. More castles, lots of walks we didn't walk, and beaches we didn't play on. We didn't see the Chillingham herd, or get as far as Malham Cove[***] or climb up Yeavering Bell... I'll probably be lobbying for another trip :)

My holiday photos are on Flickr.

Oh, and if anyone with knowledge of geology (lanfykins? beckyc?) wants to tell me what on earth's going on here, that'd be much appreciated :)

[*] Geography field trip.
[**] Biology field trip.
[***] Geography field trip. Twenty-five years, and I can still tell you that the gaps in a limestone pavement are called grikes :)