Seaton Sluice

Make your way up through the dunes and the radio masts (keeping the masts to your left) and shortly you are in Seaton Sluice.

A good spot for lunch and a pint is the Delaval Arms at Old Hartley, just before Seaton Sluice. The route almost takes you into the front door of this nice old fashioned hostelry. Good range of local real ales. You are urged to sign the petition to prevent the site being sold to property developers. T:+44 (0)191 237 0489 Food served 12-3 and 6-8.

After Seaton there is a tarmac path leading through more dunes, again running more or less parallel with the road and the sea, as far as the golfing links at Blyth Beach. At the Coastline Fish & Chip restaurant you should turn left, cross over the main road and follow the cycle-way around Blyth.


Accommodation

Lesley Kennedy

Lesley Kennedy, Waterford Arms, Colleywood Bay Rd, Seaton Sluice, Whitley Bay, NE26 4QZ





Tel  0191 237 0450

Email  les47@btconnect.com

Web  www.waterfordarms.co.uk

Rooms  2T, 2F, 3D

B&B  from £30-£40

Eve mal  £5.75-£15

Pl lunch  £4.50



Famous well beyond these shores for its unfeasibly generous portions of fish and chips, the Waterford is a charming, unpretentious and friendly local pub with rooms. Home from home, says Lesley. If you can't handle the fish and chips, there's good home-cooked food and some great real ales. Comfortable rooms.











For the next section of the journey you need to keep your wits about you, due to some poor signposting and a bewildering number of path options. First you head 1km up the A1061 towards Cramlington, before crossing the road. You will soon see a curved sign indicating a left turn painted on the pathway - don't take the immediate sharp left, as would seem the obvious choice; take the middle of three paths to the right of a blue cycle sign.

Ten yards on you see a Route 1 sign, which takes you through some houses, to the end of Barras Avenue. Cross over Plessey Road and pick up a blue sign opposite, going right into Newlands Ave. Continue for 400 metres and head left into Fifteenth Ave, then left into Sixth Ave. At the cross-roads with Eighth Ave, go across into Twentieth Ave, then right after 60m, up an alley. At the end, go right then first left, into Southend Ave.

Go past the Isabella pub to the end of the road and turn right past the back of a terrace of new houses. Go left at the end into Cowpen and Newsham, keeping four cooling towers to your right, then go over a bridge, over the disused railway. Pay aftention here! Over the bridge there is a cycle path to the left, and just further on, one to the right - and, confusingly - one also taking a middle course. Take the middle one, and after 200m or so, your decision will be rewarded by the sight of a blue sign, confirming that you are en route.

You are on Tynedale Drive - proceed to the end and take a sharpleft by a playing field. If you can see Tynedale Place, you've gone too far. Keep going as far as the traffic island and hang a right past some new houses. Cross the road and take the cycle lane past Asda. Congratulations! You have made it past the labyrinthine and sporadically signposted suburbs of Blyth. The best bit of Blyth is the old town, by the marina and harbour. See the map if you fancy taking the diversion. From the point of view of aesthetics, I am no fan of wind turbines; but here they are striking, juxtaposed with the statues of twisted metal.

Gefting through Bedlington Station and East Sleekburn is easy. Keep peddling; you will soon be out of this seemingly unremifting landscape of industrial heritage. The track follows the A189 for four or five kilometres, taking the middle course between Ashington and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. If you want to stop in Newbiggin, take the B1334 - 1km after crossing the River Wansbeck - into the centre.