Black Friday, good day for a walk. (Northumberland) November 23rd.
Along with Halloween which seems to have replaced Bonfire Night and School Proms  we seem to have adopted Black Friday from the Americans, What next< Independence Day, Thanksgiving?
For various reasons the team is reduced to three today, Brian, John H. and me and we have chosen a coast/country walk starting from Craster. (A1 to Alnwick, turn right and follow signs)
The maps to use are OS Explorer 332 Alnwick and Amble for most of the walk and OS Explorer 340 Holy Island for a little bit
As you enter the village there is a large car park on the right by the information centre. A bargain at £2 for a whole day.

Craster car park on a wet day with two well dressed gadgies.

From the car park we walked down a footpath to the Shoreline Café for tea/coffee/ bacon/ scones. A great little café, good food and pleasant ladies.Having fuelled we started the walk, passing the Jolly Fisherman pub and the kipper factory.

Shoreline café, raining as we entered, dry when we left.

Jolly Fisherman, famous for crab sandwiches and as a restaurant

The kipper factory. (Smoked herring for the uninitiated.

We walked round the harbour and set off across the fields to Dunstanburgh Castle.

Craster harbour. The block on the right jetty was used in the days when stone was exported. A cable system ran from the quarry which is now the car park to the harbour.

Dunstanburgh castle ruins. Built by Thomas Duke of Lancaster in the 14th century.

The footpath here is the Northumberland Coastal Path and St. Oswald's Way. We walked past the castle, not bothering to read the noticeboard at the entrance again and continued on our way past golf club, anticline and WW2 bunker.

Famous anticline, looking grey rather than black on this Friday. Looks like a couple of geologists on the top.

WW2 bunker.

We left the official footpath and walked down onto the beach of Embleton Bay, a long curve of sand.. A couple of weeks ago, on holiday in Spain I told a lady where I lived. She said we had miles of lovely beaches but not an awful lot of facilities. What does she want? Hotels, sun loungers, bars?

Embleton Bay on a grey day, temperature about 6C

At the north end of the bay is Low Newton by the Sea, a square of cottages with a well known pub, the Ship, which has its own micro brewery and is renowned for its food. We walked behind the square to the Newton Pond Nature Reserve which has a new hide.

Low Newton, cottages and pub

New hide at the nature reserve. Not much on the pond, ducks and a lone redshank.

Leaving the hide we followed the footpath through the summer shacks that overlook the beach and walked round the edge of Dunstanburgh Castle Golf Course to Dunstan Steads, a tiny settlement. From here we walked along a concrete strip on the edge of fields to the farm and cottages at Dunstan Square, passing a limekiln and unusual WW2 bunker.

Limekiln (used for making a fertiliser in the old days)

It looks as if it was made from concrete filled sand bags. We thought of using it as a Herbie Spot but it was low and dark.

Instead we walked on to the village of Dunstan and made use of the bus shelter.

The bus shelter mad a good Herbie Spot. I had soup and we shared granola cookies, Nature Valley Crunchie biscuits and savoury muffins from Mrs A..

Lunch over we took the road past Craster Tower and turned right up a lane to Craster South Farm. From here the route crosses several fields to the carpark at Howick Hall and then down the road to the farm named Sea Houses, appropriate name considering its situation. We took the footpath down towards the sea, turned left and followed the coastal path back to Craster.

This cottage was built as a bathing house for the ladies of Howick Hall which is the home of  the gentleman who invented Earl Grey tea, introduced the 1833 Great Reform Act and has a statue on top of a monument in Newcastle.

Changed we headed for the Cook and Barker at Newton on the Moor. On offer were three hand pulled beers; Alnwick Blonde. Stygian Blonde and Black Sheep. And I wasn't driving!

Both maps; Contain OS data, copyright. Crown copyright and database right 2018.

A min matrix:

                                                                        steps                      miles

NAK                                                               32053                     11.63

iPhone                                                             26209                     11.9

OUTDOOR GPS                                                                            11.8

Brian                                                                                                11.93