Day Three Haltwhistle To South Shields
After a half decent sleep we were up early doors washed and packed up about 07:30-ish ready for the last push to home. The campsite was very quiet this morning compared to when we arrived last night, light showers meant we had to pack up the tents wet… yet again, but seeing as it was the last day no real dramas.
We left the site and rejoined the route and straight into a cheeky climb luckily it was on a separate cycle track rather than the road once at the top we got a long distance view of Vindolanda Fort
(Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort just south of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, which it originally pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD.)
It wasn’t very far from this spot that we reached the summit of the ride (255m)… but to be honest it didn’t feel too bad of a climb 48 miles to go. All downhill from here 🤔
We carried on with the sun on our backs and the wind in our hair, but this section of the ride seemed very popular with roadies and even got chatting to a couple about bikes and bikepacking trips, but before long they’d had enough of our slow pace and shot off.
We had a good pace and some brilliant downhill sections all the way into Hexham then decided to stop at Tyne Green Park and chill on a picnic table enjoying the Sunday sunshine ☀️ the majority of the route was now on old railway lines/cycle tracks with the exception of Corbridge… but we managed to lose our bearings and circumnavigate around the centre of Corbridge altogether… typical seeing as I’d set my sights on a florentine 🙄
Then stopped for a sandwich ‘n’ coffee at Tyne Riverside Cafe then followed the Tyne into Newcastle passing a few iconic landmarks on the way.
Nice to be off the road, however loads of people out ‘n’ about which slowed us down quite a bit navigated our way along the river and down to the Quayside for another stop at the Cycle Hub for coffee.
After a short break we continued on towards Wallsend then through the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel south.
The final stretch along South Shields then we finally reached Albeia Roman Fort and the end marker of our trip.
journeys end… Unfortunately arriving late afternoon the fort was shut so just grabbed a picture through the fence before making our way back home.
Route complete.
For details check out the ride on komoot.
Thoughts on Two Wheels 