Wooler - July 2005
Northumberland, England

  After a great trip to Portpatpatrick in 2004, it seemd an obvious idea to have another motorbike trip in 2005, unfortuantely it all went a bit 'pear shaped' and we ended up going on our own. We'd picked out the Black Bull Hotel, Wooler in Northumberland for the Thursday night, because we'd been to Wooler and liked it and the Black Bull looked reasonable from their website. It poured with rain all morning and we seriously thought about going by car but decided against it and spent three hours getting absolutely soaked as a result. Still, they were friendly when we got to the hotel, it was warm and busy, the room was good and the bar was open, what more could we ask. We got showered, turned up the central heating in the bathroom, hung our wet gear on the shower door and headed for the bar.

  The Black Bull Hotel, Wooler, Northumberland, our home for 4 nights, comfortable and well fitted. The shower room with it's own heating radiator was really useful for drying the waterproof gear (it's not waterproof...) on the first couple of nights. Food served and very enjoyable it was, a good bar with a few hand pulled beers to choose from and popular with locals which is always a good sign. Breakfast was served in the room with the bow window above the front door, the 'Full English' kept us going every day, although we had lunch anyway, because we were on holiday and you do that sort of thing on holiday. We thought it was the best pub in Wooler although there were a couple of others to choose from which we tried out a sense of experimentation. They were OK but less popular and a lot noisier, younger people than us may prefer them.

  After experiencing our first breakfast, the rain was still pouring down so we went back to our room to catch up on our reading. By late morning we'd had enough so we put the waterproofs on, by now they were dry and warm, and headed through Alnwick to Alnmouth where we had a pub lunch. It was still raining and the estaury looked very dreary in the mist and rain, especially with the tide out and the mud exposed.

  As you can see from the pictures, it's a bit damp. The waterproof trousers worked, the jackets and gloves didn't, they were going to need a session hanging in our home made drying room come shower cubicle. After leaving Alnmouth, we rode up the coast to Beadnell where it was even worse and onto Seahouses, where it was a little drier but we'd had enough by then, time to turn round, head for Wooler and hope for better weather tommorow. We ate out at the fish and chip shop which was OK, and tried the Angel Inn and Red Lion. Neither were as good as the Black Bull so we retired to the bar for a late evening of tall stories and beer with some other weekend residents.

  We'd been told that the North of England seemed to be covered with Citroens. After listening to a weather forecast which predicted good weather inland, we headed towards kelso and started to see 2CVs, Dyanes and Amis everwhere we went. Arriving at Kelso, we found out why, the 2005 2CV festival was being hosted on a camp site outside of the town and they were absolutely all over the place. All styles and colours, mostly from Europe and the UK, standard and heavily customised, very entertaining and everybody walking by seemed interested, no wonder when you look more closely at some of them.

  The rain had stopped soon after we rode out of Wooler and after leaving Kelso we drove around for a while and found a good cafe for lunch, 'Miss Ellies' on the South side of Selkirk. From their it was over to Hawick then to Kielder Water, the largest man made lake in Europe. There's a visitor centre at the Southern end, one of three around the lake and as the weather had turned damp again, we stopped for tea and buns, an essential item on any good tour. Having first visited the Kielder area on a cycling / Youth Hostelling trip in 1975, it's always a bit of a nostalgia trip for Dave to see the lake covering the area where the Youth Hostel used to be. The lake was started in the early 1970s and completed shortly after Dave stayed there, long since flooded and replaced by another hostel these days.

  Sunday dawned bright and sunny, the first time for a while that the weather had turned really hot and we were up and away on the bike to enjoy it whilst it lasted. We'd never been to St Abbs so we headed up the coast to enjoy sun coastal sunshine whilst it was available. It's a beautiful place, a bit wild still with the wind coming in from the sea but spectacular and very enjoyable after a couple of bad days. The harbour is pretty although very quiet, apart from us tourists. Not sure what the tin shack was for, it looks a bit precarious perched on the edge like that. The sign on the wall is a rabies warning, maybe it's the office of the local harbourmaster or customs man, brave people...

  And lastly, we made our way down the coast to Eyemouth, where we expected to see seals in the harbour. We'd been told that the seals came to feed on mackerel thrown in by tourists, what they hadn't told us about was the stall selling mackerel to feed to the seals! We didn't contribute, the seals looked pretty well fed and they got about £50 worth of fish in the few minutes we were there. We fed ourselves on fish and chips, cooked rather than raw, although it took a bit of searching to find the chip shop. Eyemouth has little to shout about in our opinion, tidy enough but a very uninteresting sea front with little in the way of shops, food or anything interesting. It's probably lovely if you get to know it, we didn't bother...

  After lunch, it was a wandering route back to Wooler for a last evening, mostly spent hunting down some food, there's a shortage of pubs serving food on a Sunday evening. A reasonably early night and an early start next day for the run back home, the long way around to get a bit more scenery whilst the sun continued to shine. Watch out for the speed cameras, Northumberland has lots of them.

Portpatrick tour 2004	Aberporth tour 2006

Pictures and text are copyright © Dave & Karen Petty- All Rights Reserved, please don't copy anything without our permission. Thanks, D & K.