Chopwell Woodfest

The Woodfest is a celebration of forestry and rural skills held annually at Chopwell Woods in western Gateshead. We had a rather pleasant half day there earlier this month.

Great Exhibition of the North launch - photos

The Great Exhibition of the North was launched on Friday evening. I attended the launch event. A brilliant summer evening with a lovely sunset over Tyneside, what a great backdrop to the concert, fireworks and drone display. My video of the event will be ready shortly but you can view a few of my photos on the above link.

Visiting Tynemouth

Last month we paid a short visit to Tynemouth. We called at the Tynemouth market, popped into the Gibraltar Rock pub with spectacular clifftop views, took a walk on Longsands Beach and called in to Hugo's Bar and Restaurant for lunch.

Beamish Museum Georgian Fair

Last week, Beamish Museum held a Georgian fair. We visited it on 1st June and also had a further look around other parts of the museum. Beamish however is now so large that it takes more than a day to see the whole of it. The video covers much of the museum but we ran out of time to get to the mining village. We will return in the summer.

Walk to the reservoir

After lunch at the Anglers Arms at Kielder, we took one of the walks to get to Kielder Reservoir. This took us through part of the forest and over the restored Kielder Viaduct. The walk took about half an hour to get to the reservoir.

Anglers Arms, Kielder

Kielder is a remote village closer to Scotland than Newcastle. We were there on 7th May to walk to the nearby reservoir but called in to  the Anglers Arms for lunch. The decor is a bit on the dark side and is a bit inadvertently retro. Food was cheaply priced but vegetables were somewhat tasteless. Staff were friendly but looking longingly outdoors at the sunny bank holiday weather everyone else was enjoying!

Kielder Viaduct and Reservoir

On bank holiday Monday we took a day off to visit Kielder in Northumberland. It is a small village at the western end of the Kielder reservoir (the biggest man made structure in Europe). To get to the reservoir, we walked along the Lakeside route which took us along the former railway line and over the Kielder Viaduct.