Yorkshire to North Northumberland

Word pictures and snaps of our three trains + bus journey from Whitby to Seahouses.

Whitby station

Pheasant families feeding in the mowed fields.

The moors: rolling meadows, mounds of trees, brownish-green hedgerows carving up the landscape (seen through murky train windows).

After Middlesbrough we’re in the industrial north: smokestacks and steel, buildings of concrete and sheet metal.

Acres of garden allotments in the right of way between railway line and housing proper.

It’s a rowdy train past Middlesbrough, fueled by alcohol-bound football fans having a Very Good Time, bound for the Newcastle against Oxton match.

Hartlepoole: Asta superstore with a three masted 18th century sailing ship moored next door.  Flat-ended cargo ships aiming for the industrial harbor.

Rows of caravan holiday parks spread above the seashore.

Farmers harrowing fields, seagulls swarming behind to pick at the fresh-turned earth.

Many windmills, of the old and new variety, along this perpetually windy coast.

Durham Heritage Coast: open fields, deep cliffs, spiky vegetation and walkers.

Newcastle upon (the river) Tyne.

Quiet time on the train from Newcastle-upon-Tyne bound for Edinburgh. Language sounding less like the English we know the farther north we travel. The train conductor’s rolling burr lets us know we’re in the Borders.

Berwick upon Tweed rail station

Potato-leeky soup and sandwich at the Castle Inn, up the hill from the Berwick-upon-Tweed rail station.

Up top in the double decker bus, swaying our way down country lanes, bound for the tiny fishing (and tourist) village of Seahouses.

We’ve traded seagulls for starlings.

Our Seahouses home-from-home.

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