23rd July 2008 Seaton Carew: Transporter Bridges, and a pier!

This time we headed south Through Hartlepool to stop first at Seaton Carew, a rather quiet seaside village and resort: the council were placing large boulders to reinforce the seafront, and we were taken with the flower beds which contained some lovely varieties we had not previously seen in public.
From her we went on the the famous "Transporter Bridge" which can best be considered a sort of ferry, for vehicles and passengers enter a hanging gondola that is winched smoothly across the tiver in mid air: a very pleasant and unique bit of 1911 technology!
The operator told us "You should come on Sunday as we have bungie jumping and abseiling and jet sliding from the top!
There was also a free mini museum next to the bridge depicting it's history: apparently there are only seven bridges of this type in the world, and this one is the biggest.
A leisurely drive over the moors took us to Castleton to our usual cafe for lunch, then north to the coast and a visit to Saltburn, a picturesque small resort with a very steep winding approach, and it's other claim to fame is one of the last surviving pleasure piers on the east coast.
The beach is covered in coal dust: normally it is pristine sand, but in times of turbulent seas as we have recently had a seam of sea coal is disturbed by the wave action, and amazing amounts of coal dust can come in on a single tide:
Fortunately it can go just as quickly if the weather conditions change.
The pier is accessed from the clifftop by two Victorian water operated balance rail lifts, where the tank in the upper car is filled with water to descend, and at the same time the water in the tank of the lower car is vented to make it lighter, a sophisticated and silent means of operation!

22 July 2008 Cross country and also the Headland

The forecast was foe a mild though cloudy day, so this time we decided to tour inland below the roads we had covered on the previous days, so after crossing to Bishop Auckland we took the back roads to Middleton in Teesdale, then up over the moorland narrow roads.
There is just one problem when doing this, and that is to find a way of making an interesting photograph of such a panorama of featureless land: it is hugely impressive to look at, but terrible difficult to photograph well, and there are none of the normal elements that you can use to give foreground interest, or even scale to the picture: what I usually look for is an interesting sky, or perhaps dappled sunlight, or in the case here the roads across the moor formed what I hope is an interesting pattern that takes you into the picture.

Above Middleton there are great views down into the river valley, and here and there farms that form interesting foreground details to give the picture scale.

The afternoon proved to be surprisingly hot and sunny and after tea I sallied forth to look at the "bit of Hartlepool that sticks out at the top" known as the headland.
It proved to be a strange place, on the northern shore there were literally miles of promenade, but strangely blank, no shops. no development of any kind, just mile after mile of beach and concrete wall and metal railings, weird!
At the end there was a little more in the way of facilities, The is a history park of the old wartime gun battery, a lighthouse and a cannon from the crimean war, and a walled garden and flower beds and statue that the seagulls clearly loved, further round towards the town even a paddling pool built into the lower level of the seawall.
There was access all the way along and people coming with rod and line for an evenings fishing of the little jetty by the harbour.

This contrasts sharply with the area around the power station on the northern shore, where crumbling factory buildings are the order of the day. considering that they are right on top of beautiful beaches it's a shame that no one has bothered to redevelop the area.

21st July 2008 Heading for Housesteads on Hadrians Wall

Cloudy on the coast but as we headed inland towards Bishop Auckland the sun cam out and we had a glorious day. We steered clear of the main built up areas and soon found ourselves heading north via tiny back roads through highly variable terrain, and by the side of the road were many abandoned farmhouses , fallen into rack and ruin.
I stopped to photograph one, startling the sheep who had taken refuge in the shell of one of the buildings.
The main farmhouse itself was in no better case, crumbling and collapsing back into the landscape from which it came.
The views from the farmyard are superb, and by the way the gates are still in good condition, the land has been absorbed into a bigger farm property, so at least it is still cared for.
Further views from the same hilltop road made me wonder why the area hadn't attracted someone to rescue the farm: it had so much potential!
As usual I was attracted by the wild flowers growing by the road, we fond one that looked very like a thistle, but it wasn't as it lacked the spikes: Pat looked it up in her "Readers Digest Wild flowers" book and identified it as "Common Knapweed" (so common we had never seen it before!)

Passing the village of Rookhope we spotted the ruins of a single arh in a field, where it couldn't possibly have been part of a viaduct and then we spotted this plaque that explained it all: apparently there were several arches and on top of them a sloping flue from the lead smelting furnace carried the smoke and fumes across the river and road to enter a mile long tunnel in the hill leading to a tall chimney.
Water ran along the flue and washed the lead out into storage tanks, and there were doors at intervals where small boys could go in and scrape the highly poisonous but valuable lead deposits off the flue walls!
Health and Safety? hardly!! another piece of industrial history and not a good example of humanity to others!
Half a mile further down the road we came to the Mine itself, now rusting and forlorn, and a good thing too!

We stopped for lunch at a place called "Hadrian Fisheries" as we spotted a cafe sign, only to find to our surprise that it was in fact not a chippie, but a fishing pond with a cafe attached, but the lady opened up the cafe for us and did a splendid all day breakfast and we watched a school party outside learning to fish: (or at least learning to be patient!)

When we arrived at Housesteads we found to our disgust that the car park fee was £4 for the day, so remembering that this was the same charge as for one of the excellent all day breakfasts we had just eaten we decided to pass on that, so we set off home: the tour itself had been excellent, and we were ready to come back anyway.

After tea I walked down to Crimdon Dean and found that it too had a plaque explaining that between the world wars it had been a little resort in it's own right, where there is now just a stream and beach there had been putting greens, chalets and amenities and they had even had an annual Miss Crimdon Dean contest for many years.

There is a very good beach here backed with high dunes, and the waves would make for excellent surfing (for those so inclined!)
And finally I spotted yet another variety of thistle: this one I'm advised is a "Marsh Thistle"
Anyway the bees certainly seemed to like it

20th July 2008 Two more National Trust places visited

Since the weather forecast was reasonable we drove inland to visit Gibbside: one of the larger National trust properties in the area.
We discovered that it was a bit too large in area for us, in that it consisted of very extensive grounds, but the house itself is a ruin, and at the moment due to rain and a landslip the path to it was closed, so we had to content ourselves with looking at the Temple, kitchen gardens, (where there were some lovely flowers) and the distant monument to victory; also it was rather muddy as there had been a huge concert in the grounds the previous day, and they were still dismantling the stands.
We did, however have a very nice lunch in the cafe before travelling on.
Our next port of call was less than 15 miles away, the birthplace of Thomas Bewick, otherwise known as the "Father of wood engraving"
He was born on a small hill farm at Cherryburn, where his father not only had a farm, but apparently worked a small coal mine further up the hill too!
This is a view of the old farm from the picnic area outside the new farm where his son and family lived
The original woodcut blocks are there in the museum, and the detail in them, and the prints they made are absolutely amazing!
While we were there a printer was giving demonstrations and there was even a quoir singing in the garden. I did manage an available light shot of the interior of the old farm building, and they sure didn't have many home comforts!

19th July 2008 A visit to Souter lighthouse

Rather than drive through the many built up areas along the coast we dropped into Harlepool to shop at the Morrison's supermarket then headed out of town to pick up the A19 north.
We arrived in bright sunshine and the lighthouse was picked out against a dark cloud background, just right for photography.
We were a little early for the opening, so walked round the exterior and got some shots of the buildings, and also the fine flowers in the kitchen garden, which included some very fine poppies.
Once inside we were invited down to the foghorn room out at the front of the lighthouse, the horns are powered by compressed air which is stored in large pressure tanks both in the main buildings and down by the horns themselves and when the horn was sounded for our benefit, a walker passing in front of the lighthouse just about jumped off the cliff in fright!

Boy, was it loud!!!
This is the view back towards the main buildings

We then climbed up the tower to the light itself, which is a massive construction of glass lenses which float on a bath of a ton and a half of mercury, we were allowed to rotate the light by hand , which took virtually no effort at all.
The original light was an oil pressure light, but this was the first light house in the world to be converted to electricity, and we were shown the various different lighting systems that had been fitted.
Originally the light had been rotated by clockwork powered by falling weights in a tube that had to be wound back up every hour, but of course now they are electrically driven.

The last flight of stairs was not for the faint hearted as this picture shows, but it was well worth going up the tower to see the light.
We had a fine dinner in the light house tea room then went for a local tour inland, the finalk picture today is of the folly above Durham, apparently it was paid for by a local eccentric millionaire to provide work for local people in a time of a depression.

18th July 2008:Off on our travels again: Crimdon near Hartlepool

Setting off in rain is getting to be the standard way we go on holiday these days, but at least after an easy run North we arrived for once in dry weather,and were actually five minutes earlier than the site officially opens.
And we were impressed, from our caravan we have a lovely view down a hill to the beach and sea. Though the site is sloping this didn't cause us any problems, so we had a lazy afternoon and after tea we went for a drive to the north as far a Souter lighthouse.

It's a long time since I visited this section of the coast and I was surprised at the variety of views that we passed through. Many of the communities on the coastal road were once mining towns (remember when we had a mining industry?) and they still retain a unique character because of that.
The cliffs here are on a smaller scale than the ones in Yorkshire, but they do have a wide variety of wildflowers and birds, and range from pebbles to sandy beaches.
When we reached Souter lighthouse it was after closing time so we had to content ourselves with a short walk along the cliff top and were rewarded with views of a sea stack that was literally crowded with Cormorants: this was the first time i have ever seen so many in one place!

The lighthouse itself looked very interesting and we will certainly be visiting it during our week long stay.

Next to the lighthouse the cliffs were higher at about 60 feet, and alive with wild birds, and there are plenty of ships coming in and out of the River Tyne.