A miserable start to the day and raining lightly all morning but luckily by midday the rain had moved on leaving us with a mostly grey but dry afternoon. The wind has blown itself out, well for today at least. So we set off to pick up where we left off yesterday and parked the car at Sandy Bay Holiday Park (not sure if we should have but hey ho!) and walked down to Sandy Bay, which is the section of beach at the north end of Cambois Beach, the north side of the river Wansbeck.

Plenty of low tide sand but it looks as though there would be very little if any at high tide.

There was no way around the rocky headland so we made our way back up tthrough the caravan park to pick up the coastal path as it meandered along the cliff edge until we made our way down to Newbiggin-by-the-sea. Down onto the long crescent shaped bay of rather coarse sand.

This end was empty so we took the opportunity for Poppydog to have a good run around.

Walking along this beach was a bit heavy going (for me atleast) as it was almost like a fine shingle though becoming sandier as we continued around the bay. Half way along the beach lies this huge rock – the Hunkleton Stone a product of the Ice Age, dragged here from ‘Northern Lands’ many hundreds of years ago.

Behind it on a platform secured to the breakwater in the middle of the bay is the controversial ‘Couple’ a Sean Henry sculpture of a couple looking out to sea – I think it is quite eye catching though would have preferred it to be a bit closer to shore so that you could see it better – however there is a ‘Land Couple’ a much smaller replica a bit further around the bay, just off the Promenade.

It was apparently named as one of the six worst sculptures by London Art Critic Jonathan Jones who clearly hasn’t seen the coal and resin wall at Ayr! I liked it, finding something unexpected and appealing makes me smile!

We continued on our way, around the next headland to Newbiggin Moor Beach a delightful fairly narrow strip of soft white sand. Looking back towards Newbiggin Point…

And northwards towards Lynemouth Power Station….

As you can see the sun has come out as well so we stayed awhile enjoying our space. Time to move on as there is one more beach to find. At the end of this beach we had to rejoin the coastal path which is running along the cliff tops on the edge of Newbiggin Golf Course and soon over the dunes we find Lynemouth Beach….

A mixture of sand and sandstone slabs aand much nicer than the beach on the other side of the Power Station – still time is cracking on so we don’t hang about and make our way back to the car via a more inland route and thereby cutting a few corners as 10.5 miles is enough!