Visiting the Holy Island of Lindisfarne

You can't beat a sunny morning in the countryside. Sailor, Penny and I walked to a fabulous viewpoint of Northumberland National Park and even saw a couple of deer on route. Today we visited the Holy island of Lindisfarne. We like to give the doggies new experiences and today was one of them when we drove over a causeway which is underwater twice a year. We paid £4.40 to park for the day and then went to explore the island. In AD635 Saint Aidan visited from Iona and founded a monastery on the island. Famous for St Cuthbert whose body was undecayed when his remains were unearthed years after his burial. They now rest in Durham Cathedral.

We first visited the Priory because Penny is a huge fan of ruins and castles. I have a strange feeling that we bought English Heritage membership because of Penny. The priory has a great rainbow arch. Penny gets into every nook and cranny, through arches and into kilns. She loves it. We stopped for lunch in the Crown and Anchor pub where the doggies had a rest after an eventful morning, then we went on an epic journey...which wasn't meant to be quite as long as it was.

We started by walking up to the highest point on the island for a great view over the village and the priory. We thought we would do the 5km nature walk which was meant to take 1.5-3 hours. We started by walking through the harbour and towards the castle but the downside of holidaying in summer is that the island was jam packed full of tourists. It was like ants, we were all heading the same way. However, we peeled off while everyone else climbed to the top of the hill to visit the castle.

We walked the wagon way, previously used to transport lime to the castle. We walked and walked and then a dog owners nightmare...a stile! With absolutely no chance of getting the greyhounds over to the other side. After a quick visit to a hide to look at the lough, we had to take a big detour in search of a kissing gate. Luckily we found one but the otherside had a stile so instead we walked through a field of thistles to continue our trail. I then regretted walking sandals.

The field of thistles finished us off, we were in desperate need to coffee and cake and the doggies had their head down and just wanted to stop. It was a fabulous walk in glorious sunshine and the best bit was the lack of people. A quick pit stop and then we were back on the causeway as it was open again after being hidden underwater for the last 4 hours while we were an island.

Very tired doggies today but we are loving family time.