Not so Hot – Northern England

The UK has so many fabulous places to explore, it would take at least a year’s worth of weekly blogs to come anywhere close to doing them justice. Here’s a few more memorable ones.

Northumberland
So many holidays were spent exploring the north-eastern coastline – bringing back memories for me da who was born and raised in North Shields. Highlights for me were Morpeth market, Ashington, Annick, Bamburgh Castle and the truly atmospheric isle of Lindisfarne – frequently seen in the distance, but never actually visited. So many images of sitting in the camper van, dressing locally-caught crabs, carefully removing the dead man’s fingers.

Yorkshire
On the day after Chris’ first birthday (24/7/89), when we stopped in a Friends Meeting House in Skipton – our first experience of holidaying with a baby, and Joanna was already cooking well at five months, with 4 and a bit.
We returned in April 2000, and one of the highlights was visiting the Forbidden Corner, which appealed strongly with echoes of David Bowie’s Labyrinth greeting is in every section. For anyone with kids from about 5 all the way up to quite old teens, this place is a must-see with a useful guide highlighting all the goodies to spot with rhyming clues.
On another day, we explored the White Scar caves which was very cool - in fact downright chilly, but filled with spectacular sights and well worth a visit.

That same holiday saw us ticking one of the boxes on my bucket list – Walking behind a waterfall. And not just any old waterfall, but the one used in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves - the scene where Kevin Costner (or, as we discovered, his body double) is just "taking a lady's advice" and having a shower in nature. I trawled the internet (such as it was back in 2000) and discovered this could be visited via the Green Dragon Inn. For a modest fee you walked through the back garden to see Hardraw falls – the highest single-drop waterfall in England. And if you're the type who doesn't pay attention to all the the warning signs, you can actually walk behind it. 16 miles down the road in Wensleydale are the Aysgarth Falls – used as the backdrop for the scene where Robin Hood fights John Little – who apparently can’t swim!