Hopping off the Metro, Kat and I found ourselves on the quaint streets of Tynemouth.
Tynemouth is a coastal village lined with shops, pubs and cafes, bending it’s way towards the mouth of the River Tyne with lighthouses and ruins of the Tynemouth Priory at the tip of the headlands.
We grabbed some lunch at a café and hit the quirky shops such as Razzberry Bazaar.
We then made our way to the heritage-listed Priory, a 7th century Anglican monestary, which sits majestically on the headlands, despite only having ruins left to hint what had been many centuries ago.
Kat and I explored and climbed around the sandstone walls nestled in the lush green lawns, discovering the remains of the Priory such as the kitchen, the chapel and narrow stone stairwells leading to floors of rooms where one could only imagine the untold stories.
When we left the Priory, we made our way along the curving coastline to Cullercoats.
Cullercoats is a neighbouring coastal town with a sprawling beach, Grand Hotel, Robinson Crusoes café, and proud St Georges Church demanding attention with it’s tall black steeple.
We popped into Robinson Crusoes for a drink and walked along the beach to see the smugglers caves in the rocky hillside of Cullercoats. During the 18th century, fishermen used smuggling to help provide for their families, and today you can make out the caves and imagine the tunnels leading up to the terraced houses built along the winding roadside high above the beach.
After a stop off at Kat’s house, we walked back to Tynemouth and down to Fish Quay for the evening. The streets were quiet as the fish outlets were closed and the fisherman had all returned home for tea. What remained were a few open cafés and restaurants serving catches of the day.
Kat took me to dinner at a humble café serving huge plates of fish and chips. We had a ball trying to finish our meals and staggered out of the café to walk off our meals along the beach.
The sun was setting and we watched with amusement as the sail boats attempted to catch the evening wind. We walked along the grassy hillside and stopped to rest at some seats admiring the sweeping views, before heading up and around the hill, past the Collingwood statue and back into Tynemouth.
We ended our day with a drink at the Turks Head Hotel, a lively and local pub, where Kat once worked years ago.
I headed back to the city as dusk drew the day to a close, feeling revived and refreshed from my seaside tour.
