Lindisfarne Wander

A couple of Sundays ago my wife and I decided to visit the Holy Island of Lindisfarne for the first time in years. If you are a regular reader of this blog you will recall that we had, over the course of several years, finally completed our coastal walk of the North-East from the Scottish border down to Staithes. We've since added a bit more onto that to the south, but I was always bothered about the fact that we'd never actually walked the Holy Island Causeway. So we finally decided to have a go. 

First of all here's a rough map of ours travels:

(click on image to enlarge)

In all, about 10 miles in 4 hours. Quite easy, really.

As you can probably make out, we began at The Snook Car Park in (roughly) the middle of the picture. That way we avoided any car parking charges, and it was a nice central spot for our planned route.

First up was a short walk to the NW to see Snook Tower and Snook House:

Snook House is, of course, the fictional home of TV's Vera. 

Then we angled over the dunes to hit the expansive beach to the north, and then curved around to meet the island end of the causeway. Then it was a walk along the causeway to the mainland, followed by a prompt about-turn across the sand, eastwards, towards Lindisfarne village some three miles distant. We, of course, followed the line of posts which marks the so-called "Pilgrims' Way":

We should really have removed our boots for this part of the walk, but once you get to certain stage of wetness, well, there seems little point! So on we plodded...

We had a scare about three-quarters of the way over when my wife, Angie, sunk up to her knees in the mud. Naturally, she blamed me instantly, and I was then lambasted for not immediately rushing to her aid. Well, there wasn't much point in us BOTH getting mucky, was there?

Anyway, we finally made it to the village ... and it was rammed with visitors. We did a cursory tour of the usual touristy spots - the priory, St.Mary's Church, and the famous 'Petting Stone' (over which newly-wed brides are obliged to clamber after their wedding ceremony!):

After a quick visit to the viewing tower at the SW extremity of the island, we moved on to the remains of another very early chapel on the southern shore ...

... Before about-turning and heading for the castle:

And you've just GOT to get that classic shot of the castle fronted by those wonderful lime kilns:

And, on the eastern shore, this seems to be a thing nowadays. Nice:

We then followed the circular path around the eastern and northern sides of the island, before cutting once more over the dunes and onto that HUGE beach on the northern side of the island. Wow!:

And so back to the car. What a day! And I didn't forget to pick up a couple of obligatory bottles:

And that was, at last, the whole of the North-East coast done properly, then!