C&C day-2

After a sound nights sleep, I opened the curtains this morning, on this magnificent view of Warkworth castle. It's the first of today's four great castles - Warkworth, Alnwick, Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh.

Unfortunately that was about the last of the sunshine. From Warkworth to Alnwick, it rained steadily, and rather than see Alnwick castle, I spent a happy half-hour in Barter Books drying out in front of an open fire.

Then onwards to Alnmouth, and up the coast to Craster where I broke for lunch. By then the rain had cleared, and it was grey and windy, but dry.

There is a choice of route from Boulmer to Craster. I chose the coast path over the metalled road. It's not a good surface for a heavily loaded road bike, so I had to walk and push most of the way - but that was a small price to pay for some magnificent views of the sea and coast.

From Craster to Seahouses and from Bamburgh to the day's final destination in Beal, the route moves away from the coast. So for the short leg from Seahouses to Bamburgh I ignored the proper route and kept to the coast road.

The end result was that I caught glimpses of Dunstanburgh castle as I passed, and watched Bamburgh getting increasingly impressive as I approached.

For the last few miles it was raining again. So the weather could have been better, but the scenery was as good as I expected.