Arrived in Newcastle with Dominic yesterday by train from London. Uneventful trip except at the start when trying to print out our prepaid tickets and the machine could not connect to the server. In the end we travelled using the sheet I had printed out at home. Athe other strange thing is that they will not tell you which platform the train is going from until about 15 minutes before departure. This is probably to stop people from getting on the train before they are ready.
Arrival to Newcastle was into a typical English rainy afternoon. We. Located a hotel (Sandgate Signature) which I is just across the road from the Newcastle football club stadium. Although not very far we considered a taxi was justified due to the weather and the (Geordie) taxi driver agreed with us.
We are just up the road from Newcastle's Chinatown so we wandered down there later on and had a nice Chinese buffet dinner.
Slept well and woke to a reasonably fine day. We had worked out that we need to get a bus from the Haymarket Bus Station tomorrow to where our walk starts so we took the Metro from just across the road to the Haymarket Metro to suss it out for when we have to lug suitcases. Without the luggage it would be much quicker to walk but we ain't going to walk it tomorrow.
Spent some time walking around the shopping area, including the Grainger Market which I remember from when I was little.
When we got back to the hotel I took this photo from our window. It looks out over apartment blocks being built for student accommodation and there are many more going up in different parts of the city centre. (The photo will be inserted later - don't ask!).
Went for another walk down towards the river, passing sections of the old town walls on the way. These were built way back in the 13th to 15th centuries to save the city from attack and continued lot work until breached during the English Covil War in about 1644. Lunched at the Quayside pub down on the quayside (who would have thunk) and then watched the opening of the Gateshead Millenium bridge. Pity they don't let you on it during this process as it would be a spectacular high-speed bike ride up around the nicely banked curve.
During the day I also called one of my cousins (Brian) and set things up for when we return to Newcastle after our walk. Just after we started out on our second walk of the day his brother Alan called me and it was good to have made contact after all this time. We have arranged to have dinner with them all on 5th May so that should roll a few years away.
