Northumberland

During a short visit to this wonderful stretch of coastline, officially designated an “area of outstanding natural beauty”, I visited a few locations with my camera.

The trip was a little weekend away centred around a sunset boat trip around the Farne islands. The plan was to head up to Lindisfarne first of all while the tide allowed a crossing - The causeway only passable at low tide. I arrived onto the island knowing there was around 6 or 7 hours before the tide would come in and make the return journey impossible.

After parking the car in the main island car park I set off walking to the main attraction - Lindisfarne Castle. This is a very well shot subject by many photographers and it is easy to see why! The castle on the hill, overlooking the Holy Island made a commanding backdrop for any shot. I would like to try this again at some point with the tide in, covering some of the rocky foreground.

After making it back to the mainland and down to Seahouses there was a couple of hours to kill until our boat trip out to the Farne Islands with the hope of seeing some Dolphins. We had a game of crazy golf when my phone rang…”Unfortunately the sea is getting too rough and we will have to cancel the boat trip” - gutted!

The boat company, Serenity, did however ask if there was any chance we could join another trip the following day instead so we booked onto the lunch time sailing to the Farne Islands. Our evening was then spent at Embleton bay instead, trying some long exposure photography on the beach as well as trying to capture some shots of Dunstanburgh Castle.

The sunset didn’t materialise anyway and the sea did look a bit rough so we were not too disheartened about the cancelled boat trip anymore. After a lengthy walk back to the car we headed off for our hotel for the night in Alnwick with a return to Seahouses planned for the next morning.

Happily the trip went ahead this time and we set off for the short sailing towards the Farne Islands. It was not long into the trip that some splashing was seen about a mile away and the tell tale sign of dorsal fins breaking the surface…”DOLPHINS” cried my daughter, extremely excited to have spotted them first!

The pod of Bottlenose Dolphins put on quite a little show for us, getting close to the boat and playing in front of us. One even gave me a couple of jumps clean out of the water! Absolutely incredible - Last nights cancelled trip now a long forgotten memory!

After a short time with the Dolphins we pressed on towards the Farne Islands. It was August so most of the breeding seabirds such as Puffins were already starting to leave or already left. We did manage to see some birdlife including a few Puffins still on the sea - grabbing a few last meals before heading off to the North Atlantic for the winter.

There also plenty of Grey Seals around, sat resting on the rocks. The captain of the boat gave both sides great views as he manoeuvred his craft around the islands, also giving plenty of commentary about the animals we could see. Very knowledgeable and also pointing out other rarer bird species flying by such as Manx Shearwater and Great Skua.

A wonderful couple of hours on the sea and then it was time to head back down the A1 to Yorkshire. This part of the UK is truly stunning, always a pleasure to visit. I have blogged about the Farne Island boat trip before and I would certainly recommend it. Hopefully one day I will manage to get on a sunset cruise - I certainly won’t mind trying again!

Rodley In The Rain

Mull ‘23