HCW Day 1 South Shields to Hexham

Thursday saw us take a day off from cycling. We headed 5 minutes from our apartment in South Shields to Arbeia Roman fort. Here we extended our knowledge of the "Rotten Romans" beyond what we had learnt by watching Horrible Histories with the kids.

A reconstruction of the gatehouse at Arbeia

Tracy the centurion 

We then took the metro into Newcastle where we meandered our way towards the Great North museum getting suitably lost on the way due to an inability to use Google maps - a sure sign of old age! We discovered the Great North museum to be like a combination of the British and Natural history museums - filled with swag and dead stuff. The ironically named Living World gallery in particular was filled to the gills with a menagerie of stuffed animals. Apparently a number of them were rescued from the collections of Victorian trophy hunters from when young gentleman would head to the colonies to shoot things in order to demonstrate their own importance.

On the way back to the metro, we accidentally bought two prints from a Lucy Pittaway gallery - at least that's Tracy's birthday sorted! On returning to South Shields we took a stroll across the park towards the beach so we could see the sculpture "The conversation piece" or more locally "The weebles".

Pleased to meet you

"Weebles wobble but they don't fall down, weebles wobble but they don't fall over" - Scott and I had an argument about which was correct for several weeks in the days before Google.

Sculpture at South Shields 

Dinner was at the Italianish - a Spanish/Italian fusion restaurant sandwiched between the seemingly infinite number of Indian restaurants. The food was delicious. We then headed back to the apartment, having walked over 20 000 steps on our supposed rest day.

So onto today - the start of the return leg to Whitehaven along Hadrian's Cycleway. The route was mostly flat and at only 35 miles we would have to find distractions on route. It was definitely a day of cycle tourism rather than cycle touring.

A quick 5 minute ride to the South Shields ferry before following the Tyne, passing the old dry docks - all that remains of the shipbuilding history of the region. 

It officially begins

A nice local took a picture for us on the ferry.

We stopped at Segedunum, the Roman fort at Wallsend and the start of Hadrian's Wall. We continued our lessons in Roman history, but we found the history of shipbuilding at Swan Hunter shipyard more interesting. They are most famous for building the Mauritania. The terraced homes of the shipyard workers used to cover the site of the Roman fort, with families living on the shadow cast by the behemoths that were being built literally at the end of the street.

Thought that this was a strange slogan to put on the side of an industrial looking building...

...turns out it was the Roman museum.

View from the tower at the remains of the fort

We stopped at the museum for coffee. Because it was instant Nescafé, the staff at Segedunum actually apologised for selling it to us. 

We continued on alongside the Tyne, passing through the bars and restaurants in areas like Gateshead that have undergone regeneration. Still many areas showed the legacy of the industrial past.

The old dock at Wallsend

Where they used to load coal on the Tyne. Apparently there were 30 wooden jettys

Plenty of...

... regeneration going...

...on too!

We passed a tiny cottage where George Stephenson was born and lived until he was 8 years old.

George Stephenson lived here along with 3 other families with his family occupying one room. Rosie stop moaning that your room is too small!

We paused at Tyne Rowing Club for lunch. We shared a white chocolate millionaires shortbread whilst we waited. Tracy wolfed hers down before we got a photo, so she used mine as a prop, only using all of her will power to avoid eating mine too.

A great place - cheap and good food.

Almost lost my cake!

Less than 20 quid, including the cake!

We met a rowing cyclist from Holland. He was riding a recumbent bike with a rowing action instead of pedalling - it looked slightly bizarre, but he was fast. He explained that he had an even more niche bike at home - a rowing tandem, where you sit back to back!

Looks mad...

...but he was damned quick (at least compared to us)

We continued on after lunch, finding that it felt odd to rejoin the road at Prudhoe, having spent the last 50 miles riding on anything but the road!

Great mural, next to the dog washing machine 

Another day, another bridge

We stopped at Grants patisserie in Corbridge - the cakes looked too good to pass up. Besides which we'd only had half a cake each at this point. Tracy couldn't finish hers, so we packed it for later (full disclosure; I ate it!)

My lemon meringue 

And Tracy's choice. Works of art. But they would be at 6 pounds each!

We continued on to Hexham, missing out the planned stop at Corbridge Roman town. We were too tight to spend £28 to continue our education on all things Roman.

As close as we got to the Roman town having spent all our money on cake

Onto Hexham where we had planned to meet Elaine and her husband David - another of Tracy's friends from university days. Great curry at Zyka in Hexham and even better company before we walked back to our Travelodge and some sleep.

Old friends - 12 years since they last met, but chatting like they saw each other last week 

Miles covered: 34

Average speed: 9.2mph

Cake of the day: Chocolate salted caramel tart 9/10 

Tracy whinge factor: 0/10