Newcastle upon Tyne; Monday, 28 September, 2015

Given the late night I had a bit of a lie-in and by the time I got down to breakfast most of the rest of the hotel was deserted.

I headed back down into town and over to the bus station to pick up the bus out to the Beamish living history museum located about 50 minutes bus ride away in County Durham.

I spent much of the day looking round the large site, with its various themed areas including a pit village, a colliery, a recreation of a 1900s town high street and WWII era farm.

The museum is spread out over quite a large site, but the historic open-top trams and buses that run round the site link everything up making it quite easy to get to see everything in a few hours.

I left just before the site was about to close, mostly because there was only one bus back to Newcastle after the museum closed and I suspected that would be quite busy, so I wanted to make sure I had seat for the journey back. In the end the bus was pretty much empty – but with a new driver learning the route it did take quite a bit longer to get back than it had done to get out.

I decided to hop off in Gateshead and pick up the Metro out to the coast getting off at South Shields. I walked down to the Tyne and picked up the ferry across to North Shields where a free link bus avoids the big hill up into the town centre and then continued on to the seafront at Tynemouth.

I had a long wander along the seafront taking in the views of the beach and castle ruins bathed in a beautiful bright red sunset before heading back to the Metro station and going back into the centre of Newcastle.

After grabbing a quick dinner in Newcastle I headed back out to the hotel and the comfort of my bed.