Who wears stilettos on a beach?

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I mentioned that a friend from my course would be with me on the trip to Tynemouth, but then - typical of Britain - it got wet and cold and gray, and then - fairly atypical of Britain - actually stayed that way. So she stayed home. She apologizes. She will, however, be with me on the forthcoming trip to Durham. This is more set in stone because she will be driving and so if she doesn't go, neither will I.

But I think Britain is beautiful, even in the rain. Especially little towns by the seaside. So readers, I give you:



Tynemouth!



Where an old, stone church serves as a permanent shopping center. Oh Britain.

Actually, much to my friend's dismay, it was not raining at all on the coast. Just gray.






The haze you see in this picture isn't fog, but mist coming off the sea. The waves were larger than I expected and the surf was MASSIVE (picture below) especially in this area (called King Edward's Bay).

The ruins of the Tynemouth Priory are on the right.

I was wrong, by the way, when I said the priory was made in a 3-digit year. There was an Anglican monastery on this site in the 9th century, but it was destroyed and this one was not built until about 90 years into the 4-digits. My bad.






If I read the description right, the rectangle in the grass is the site of the original monastery.



According to a plaque, the building was made of sandstone, and a near-millennium by the seaside has had an interesting effect on the ruins.

There was a lot here on how, from the beginning and especially in the more recent centuries, this place was used for military purposes, which makes sense because of its proximity to the mouth of the Tyne river (see what they did there?), which invading ships would use to get to Newcastle.

You can see the more modern military set-ups in some of the above pictures.



But honestly I wasn't interested in those.












Housing for the monks.



Looking straight down from the headland. I love the color of the rocks.



King Edward's Bay. See what I mean by massive surf?

After this, I followed the shoreline about 2 1/2 miles north to Whitley Bay. It was a fairly pretty walk, but most of the same type of scenery as pictured above. (Also the batteries in my camera died.) This is where I saw footprints as mentioned in the title, and actually passed the woman creating them. I have to hand it to her, that could not have been easy. I had a difficult enough time in trainers (sneakers) in the loose sand; I can't imagine sinking into it with every step. But to each their own.

On the beach immediately north of King Edward's Bay, a large group of surfers (or beginning surfers) was trying to catch some of the larger waves.

Now, I'm not saying I would have done better, but it was hilarious to watch. There must have been about 20 or 30 of them, and the whole time I was walking past, I saw 2 people actually stand up. One of them managed to STAY up.

I had to wonder if having that many novice surfers in close proximity was such a great idea. How did they keep from running into each other?

One guy, standing in the shallow water, fell because he dropped his board and a wave carried it in...still tied to his ankle. I admit that watching him hop along, desperately trying to keep up before he fell on his back in the water, was the funniest thing I saw all day.

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Comments

[Kristen]

Wonderful pictures!! I kind of like how they use old buildings for current things; better than tearing it down to build a new mall!!