27^th November

Every now and then we have an urban walk. They are always a welcome change to the stunning rural walks we do. Consequently, we only do about one every two years!

Anyway, enough of the psycho analysis.

This walk started out at the Tyne Bar at the mouth of the Ouseburn on Newcastle quayside. (Tip; the rather excellent Hub Café is a great place to pick up a delicious sandwich To Go).

Our walk took us into the thriving and extremely cool Ouseburn basin – it’s full of music venues, tech start-ups, breweries, marketing firms and an inner city farm. It’s like Shoreditch but in Newcastle. The landscape is big here – soaring road bridges above your head carry city dwellers East and West out of the city. We followed the sluggish Ouseburn through high rise blocks, trendy Victorian terraces and even a riding school before we arrived at Jesmond Dene Park.

This fabulous park was gifted to the city by the philanthropist Lord Armstrong and is criss-crossed by paths providing routes for runners, strollers and dog walkers. There is always a buzz of activity about the place even on a grey Sunday morning. We continued up to the ruined water mill before heading out of the top of the park, past the shell of St Mary’s Chapel. Amazingly this tiny desolate ruin was once one of the four most holy sites in the UK!!

We retraced our steps back to the Ouseburn basin and a welcome respite in the Hub café.