Walking the Coast – Middlesbrough to Hartlepool

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Tees Transporter Bridge

Start Point : Middlesbrough Train Station

End Point : Hartlepool Train Station

Distance : 17.20 Miles

After a bit of a hiatus while we completed the Tyne and Wear Heritage Way we are back to trying to walk some more of the Coast Path. To get back into it we decided to start addressing the gap we’d left between Hartlepool and Saltburn. Part of the reason we’ve not got around to filling the gap before was due to thinking that it wouldn’t be a particularly scenic walk around Middlesbrough, but after having so long without covering any new areas of the coast path we thought it would be a good a place as any to start back up.

At this part of the coast path the trail deviates quite far from the coast to cross the river Tees in Middlesbrough, so from North Gare in Seaton Carew to Redcar is all away from the sea!

John Martin Heritage Trail

On a recent trip to Allen Banks & Staward Gorge we happened across a way marker for the John Martin Heritage Way, always eager to find new walks we immediately looked up the details and resolved to complete the trail.

The John Martin Heritage Trail is a 13 mile (supposedly) circular walk which starts and ends in Haydon Bridge in Northumberland and explores this area of the Tyne Valley. It is made up of 2 loops, the 2 mile North loop and the 11 mile South loop. The walk was created to visit places associated with John Martin, an artist born in Haydon Bridge in the 18th Century.

Tyne and Wear Heritage Way – Washington Old Hall to Roker Pier

At the weekend we did our penultimate stage of the Tyne and Wear Heritage Way, this time section 8 from Washington to Roker. A section we’ve been looking forward to as, apart from Sunderland to Roker we haven’t walked much of this area at all. Unfortunately we were hindered a bit by the weather, which continuously switched between pouring rain and boiling sun but it was still an interesting walk.

Since the opening of the Spire Bridge in Sunderland there’s now two route options for this section, one that crosses the bridge and follows the North bank of the river and the original route which stays on the South side, there’s no real difference in the distance (both entire routes are listed as 9.5 miles). We decided to go with the new route and cross the Spire Bridge.

Tyne and Wear Heritage Way – Wylam to Ponteland

In March we walked our first section of the Tyne and Wear Heritage Way from Wylam to Thornley Woods, with the plan of doing a section a month to complete it by the end of this year. For obvious reasons we didn’t manage to keep that up, but after about 9 months we have now done another section! Heading back to Wylam for section 4, albeit in the opposite direction to the route description, however the route is way marked in both directions so this didn’t matter.

We’ve walked this whole route in pieces before (some parts many times!) but had never walked it all in one go before, so it was interesting to see how it all fit together.

Twizel Bridge and Norham Castle

We kicked off our bank holiday weekend by heading to the north of Northumberland and to Twizel Bridge to do another walk from Stuart Miller’s Adventurous Pub Walks book.

Allendale, Sinderhope and Catton

Our first walk of last weekend took us to Allendale, a village a little way from Hexham. The walk was around 11 miles and was a great opportunity to explore this area.

Walk along the Tyne

With the combination of Christmas preparations, bad weather and the nights drawing in we decided to go on a local walk (that we could do without having to drive anywhere).

We chose to head down to the river Tyne at Newborn and then walk down one side of the river to Wylam and back along the other. According to a walk in Waterside Walks in Northumberland – Stuart Miller (walk 7) the walk along the river is about 7 miles (although knowing the route well anyway we didn’t look at the exact way this walk goes) then we added about 4 miles walking to the start point and back.