A NORTH-EAST FEAST
Duration Five days
When October 2019
Why? Castles, coastline, cafés and more
Motorhome Benimar Tessoro 483
Blame the parents? While childhood summer holidays revolved around camping in a field on my uncle and aunt’s farm in the Scottish Borders (nearest town Berwick), once ensconced, there was no dipping back into England.
Latterly, my daughter spent a year living in Hartlepool, providing the ideal excuse for visiting that area and enjoying the many seaside delights of places such as Seaton Carew, in Co Durham.
Northumberland, meanwhile, simply failed to get a look-in. Until now. A gap in our learning was certainly there to be filled – like me, partner Lin had no recollections of ever visiting there.
A quick armchair tour of England’s most northerly county makes note of Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site; England’s least visited national park (the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty); Europe’s largest constructed lake and England’s largest forest (Kielder Water and Forest Park); the Cheviot Hills; the home of Hogwarts (Alnwick Castle) if you’re a Harry Potter fan; Europe’s largest area of protected night skies (in 2013, a swathe of the county was granted Gold
