Newcastle upon Tyne; Tuesday, 29 September, 2015

Having checked out of the hotel and left my bags with reception I headed back into town once more, this time to pick up the open-top sightseeing tour bus to take in the key sights of Newcastle.

I did one full circuit on the bus, but it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience as it had the worlds loudest and screechiest brakes, making it quite difficult to hear the commentary, and slightly concerning about its stopping ability, albeit that it never was going more than about 15 miles an hour.

I popped over to the central station and had a quick coffee stop whilst I waited for that bus to head off and the one 30 minutes later to arrive, which had much better breaks and made for a more comfortable ride.

Having done another loop, this time actually being able to hear the commentary, and taking in the view from the opposite side of the bus, I headed into the centre of the city to grab a late lunch.

By now there wasn’t much time to visit any of the museums in the city centre, so instead I hopped on the Metro and headed out to the pleasant seaside town of Whitley Bay to have a bit of a wander around, before catching the Metro back to where the coast line met with the airport line and picked that up back to the hotel and my luggage.

The hotel room deal included a free transfer to the airport, so rather than dragging my luggage all the way back down hill to the metro station I took advantage of the transfer and headed over to the airport, where I picked up the same metro train a couple of stops back up the line and headed back on into the city centre.

Unlike the train up, the 17:25 departure on a Tuesday evening, stopping at virtually every town down the East Coast, was quite deserted and I had a lot more room for the comfortable journey back.