These are usually short circular walks, the photos are all in order of the route left to right (although they may not have been taken on the day of the walk). If you click on a photo you will be taken to a larger image on my flickr page, where you can also click on, map, on the left of the page to find the location.

Saturday 26 March 2011

Walk, Gateshead and Newcastle

Walk, Gateshead and Newcastle, Approximately 3.5 mile or 5.5 kilometres.

Parked behind the Baltic Flour Mill in Gateshead, £3.20 for up to four hours, many other car parks around this area all about £3.50 for four hours or more, of course it is less for shorter periods but we took the full four hours on our walk.

GatesheadMillennium Bridge

Walked along the river passed the Baltic (we would pop into this art venue on the way back) and the Millennium bridge towards The Sage Gateshead. There are several flights steps to get up to the Sage and you can actually walk round the road way to avoid the steps.

New and Old

Up away from the river we walked through the Sage, there are toilets, cafes, etc, in there and great views of Newcastle from the large windows. We came out the other side of the Sage and walked towards the Tyne bridge.

Sage Gateshead   The Castle in Newcastle

From the Sage we wanted to walk over the iconic Tyne bridge so we had to find a way onto it, we walked towards the church and then down to the road and up Bottle Bank to the start of the bridge. This put us on the west side of the bridge, if you want to be on the east side, you have to walk up Church Street instead, as you can not cross over on the bridge without being run over.

Tyne bridge (1928)

Tyne bridge   Tyne Bridge

Looking from this side you get a good view of all of the other brides bar one, the Millennium bridge but there are plenty of other places to see it. Also views of the Castle and streets below, as a friend of our says, it's like the rooftops in Mary Poppins. It is practically impossible to speak on the bridge though, as the traffic noise is horrendous.

Eye level with the High LevelNewcastle

Off the bridge I intended for us to head along Westgate Road, passed the Train station and on towards the Arena, then back down to the river but Dot wandered off in the direction of the shops. So we actually headed down Mosley Street onto Grey Street and eventually into the Eldon Square shopping centre. We came out of Eldon Square on the other side, onto Percy Street and headed down hill (should be the way to the river), onto Gallowgate.

Eldon Garden

We continued down Gallowgate towards the football stadium (St James Park), until we came to the Chinatown gate.

Chinatown Newcastle

From there, followed the outside of the old town walls (something I didn't know existed) to Rutherford Street and onto St James Boulevard / Blenheim Street to the Redheugh bridge and Arena.

Town Walls Newcastle

We walked down steps to the river but there was a fence at the bottom baring our exit, rather than climb back up all the steps we climbed over the fence. So the easy way down, is via the roadway on Shot Factory Lane. Here the we sat by the river in the sun (which had just come out) and had lunch, sandwiches we had bought in town.

Before heading back east, we walked for about a third of a mile west along the river as far as a wooden jetty, then it was back towards all the bridges and the Newcastle quayside. If you like bridges, this is the walk for you, the first one we pass under on the way is the Redheugh road bridge one of the newer bridges. Not a new crossing though, this is the third road bridge at this point.

Redheugh Bridge (1983)

This is followed by the King Edward VII rail bridge.

King Edward VII Bridge (1906)

Two down with another five to go before we get back to where we started, next to the so called Blinking Eye Millennium Bridge. Next in line is the Queen Elizabeth II Metro rail bridge, another of the new bridges, part of the underground system.

The Queen Elizabeth II Metro Bridge (1981)

The sun was still shining but it was a bit on the cold side. Just before the next bridge is a very popular old pub The Quayside, we have been in there in the past but not today.

Dot on our walk in Newcastle

We are now at the point where bridges come thick and fast, first of these is the High Level bridge, used by rail and road and the oldest of the present day bridges. It was design by the railway engineer Robert Stephenson, son of the famous railway pioneer Georgia Stephenson.

The High Level Bridge (1849)

The Second road bridge is the Swing bridge, built on the site of all the previous crossings since the first one built by the Romans. It is probably the fourth or fifth bridge on the site and replaced the Georgian Bridge, to allow ships access to the new factories and coal supplies up river.

The Swing Bridge (1876)The Swing Bridge (1876)

Once under the Swing bridge we then passed under the Tyne bridge that we walked over earlier in the day, to the left here are some of the oldest buildings in Newcastle, on Sandhill.

Tyne bridge (1928)

Once passed the bridge, we get a very good view of the Sage Gateshead, that we had walked through at the start of today's walk, whenever you see this building there always seems to be people working on the top of it.

 The Sage Gateshead

So we finally arrive at the Millennium Bridge, the last of the seven, and all we have to do is cross over it to be back at the Baltic where we started. At this side of the bridge is the Pitcher and Piano, a modern pub with good beers, unfortunately we didn't have the time to pop in.

 Millennium BridgeNewcastle

After some more photos we crossed over to have a look in the Baltic at Yoko Ono's Between the Sky and My Head exhibition.

Imagine Peace

It is the second time we have been in and the second time we have been very unimpressed by the art exhibited (three times now), last time it was Antony Gormley.

The Baltic

Luckily we were in a hurry but you really do get a very good view from the viewing platforms at the top though.

 View from the Baltic>

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