Although the weather forecast was a bit threatening, this walk escaped all but the briefest of showers and we enjoyed a glorious Autumn day.

Starting out at the Tyne Riverside Country Park car park, on the Prudhoe side of the Ovingham Bridge, we headed off along the excellent riverside pathway.  We were following the Tyne eastward on this first stretch and the excellent footpath is popular with dog walkers, cyclists and joggers as well as us ramblers. The river snakes sinuously here, in large broad bends and the trees cloaking the northern shore were ablaze with Autumn colour.

After about half an hour we could see glimpses of the old railway bridge between the trees and soon enough we reached Wylam Railway Bridge. It’s a beautiful bit of cast iron engineering and spans a slight bottleneck in the river at this point between two bends. Crossing the bridge, we were now walking on an old railway route just below Wylam village.

Instead of following the route eastwards, we took a steep path to the left and we were soon amongst the houses of Wylam itself. This short stretch of pavement walking past many fine houses was the sharp turn of our walk and after climbing into stunning woodland, we were heading westward once again. We stopped here for lunch and enjoyed fabulous views over the Tyne valley richly decorated into reds and yellows.

After a half mile of woodland walking we reached the edge of Wylam village itself and zig-zagged north west and upwards across pasture and arable fields for nearly a mile before reaching the outskirts of Horsley village. After another short stretch of pavement walking we were back amongst farmland and heading down across a large field full of black cows.

The final mile of the walk was another series of zig-zags following field boundaries and overgrown lanes before returning to Ovingham village itself and crossing the Bridge back to the cars.

8 miles