Lindisfarne

Almost perfect.

We left Hamsterley in good time. There wasn't too much snow. The train to Berwick was almost empty. An hour's journey later, we were ready to begin our bike.

It was cold. Even with my winter cycling gloves. The tips of my fingers were numb and what I could feel was tingly and painful.

All that said, the bike to Lindisfarne was beautiful: waves rolling into shore, birds chirping, dogs playing on the beach.

When off asphalt, it was hard to take in anything but the ten feet in front of you. The ground was still wet and had dangerous mud grooves from vehicles and other bikes. Poor Jack fell twice, which is highly unusual for him (falling is more my thing).

The highlight was the bike along the causeway, which is level with what becomes seabed twice a day. It was otherworldly.

I have to find out what that windswept plant is. From a distance, the hills looked like rock but close up, they were covered in this pale yellow flora.

Cafe stop for cheese scones and rock-hard butter (Pilgrims Coffee House & Roastery). We were happy to be under a warming light and had hot drinks to bring feeling back to our fingers.

The Priory Museum was small but interesting and the ruins were impressive. We probably could have spent an hour with the friendly lady in the entrance booth. She told us that the landowner had sold the lead from the roof of the priory in the 1600s and that was when it really started to fall apart. Perhaps as karma, the lead shipment sank and the landowner was never paid for it.

A short bike over to the castle brought the best views. We got a preview of tomorrow's castle: Bamburgh.

Since the causeway would no longer be safe by 17h, we decided to head out early (around 13:30) and go on to the pub hotel.

We hit our only significant hills on this part of the journey and it was quite devastating to arrive early only to find the pub was closed till 16:30 (The White Swan Inn).

We had two hours to kill in the cold outdoors. We sheltered at a bus stop on the main street. It was very difficult but at least we were motivated to do some stretches to stay warm. Hopefully, that will pay off tomorrow.

Online searching showed the only other pub in the vicinity opened at 16h (The Black Bull Inn). We walked up together and went in as it opened. It was a small but lively place. One couple sat down to share a booth with a fellow they didn't know. I could hear them talking about the rugby that was on the TV.

There was also an old dog in the pub (maybe a spaniel?). She was desperate to make friends. Sometimes she'd be lying on the floor and look dead to the world except for a furiously thumping tail. Two patrons gave her much appreciated scratches.

We had two whisky drams of unremembered age: Highland Park and Jura (pronunciation). Both were good, but we both preferred Jura.

The day started fine. We were on the road close to 9h and, thanks to some great declines, were averaging about 18km/h when we reached Bamburgh.

Bamburgh Castle is huge and cuts an impressive figure on the rocky hilltop overlooking the sea.

We wished we could have stayed longer. If I were to do this again, I would have us stay overnight in Bamburgh.

We hurried on to our lunch stop at Seahouses. I thought we'd be OK as long as we left by 12h30. Two hours to go 30km seemed reasonable. I had not factored in the wind, a critical error.

We struggled to find a place to eat as many were closed or not serving lunch. Eventually, Neptune's Fish & Chips was the winner. We've learned to share pub-portioned food and half a fish & chips (however delicious it may be) is more than enough for a lunch stop.

Back on the road, the wind started working against us. I felt completely out of energy by 14h but was determined not to miss another train (see Hexham, Bike Day 3).

We decided to skip the planned off-road coastal portion of the ride and stick to the road, in an attempt to avoid the worst of the wind. This made the journey longer, and the wind was still pretty angry at us.

Desperately tired and defeated, we limped to Alnmouth ten minutes late for our train - only to find the train station wasn't actually properly marked at the end of our route. We were still several kilometres away from it.

In the end, we arrived at the station a solid 45 minutes late for our scheduled departure. But as luck would have it, our train was running over an hour late, so we caught it despite ourselves.