Northumberland Day 4 - Breamish Valley Hillfort Trail, Alnmouth Beach & Hulne Park

On Day 4 we walked on Breamish Valley Hillfort Trail of Northmuberland National Park! The hills around there were part of the Cheviot Hills a range of rolling hills that was formed millions of years ago by volcanic lava flows. The starting point was outside of a tiny village called Ingram. Sheep were everywhere!   

Timber Harvesting works were ongoing around the starting point. We needed to climbed up a slope, pushing our way through deep fern fields until we found the trail!

Phew, there was the trail on the top! 

Hello! 

The weather was gorgeous!

Giant cows were on our way... 

Cows and sheep were friends there.

Marvelous views!

By using J's trail map, we spotted a couple of remains of the ancient settlement. It was exciting like a treasure hunting.

More spectacular views!

Getting a bit tired after a few hour walk... but those cute faces cheered me up.

Foxgloves were in full bloom. 

We didn't see a single human being during the walk. Just two of us (and sheep and cows) in the beautiful nature. Awesome! It was time for lunch. We tried to check a cafe in Ingram, but somehow we couldn't find a way to the village. We quickly gave up and drove to Alnmouth, a coastal village near Alnwick.

We tried Bistro 23. The restaurant was bright and cozy. We ordered a crab sandwich and a seafood platter to share. I saw a word "stottie" on the menu. I asked our waiter what it was. She told me it's a regional bread and kindly replaced a usual brown toast on the seafood platter with a slice of stottie!

That's stottie! Light and soft white crumb bread. I liked it! We enjoyed the lunch pretty much. Their cake collection looked nice, too. We took a slice of Jaffa cake with us.

After lunch, we stoped by at Scotts of Alnmouth, a deli on the same street as Bistro 23.

There was a nice collection of Northumberland goodies as well as international delicacies. We picked a local strawberry rhubarb jam and a pack of local cheese biscuits. Their baked goods looked wonderful, too. We bought a blackberry almond cake as well as a savory cheese scone for J's breakfast and pain aux raisins for mine.

Love to see the sea! I wanted to walk to the edge of the water, but the tide was low; the water was far away. Still it was very nice to stroll on the soft sand beach for a while.

I drove back to Alnwick but it was still a little early to go back to the cottage. Visiting Hulne Priory was one more adventure of the day. Well, it ended up to be a harder adventure than we expected!

Hulne Priory was located in Hulne Park. We didn't know you can't drive in the park. The priory was about 2 miles away from the park entrance. Therefore we did a long walk to the priory. 

The priory was sitting on a small hill, overlooking the River Aln and surrounded with stone walls. It is said that the priory was founded in 1240 by Carmelite "Whitefriars" monks, making it perhaps the first Carmelite priory in England. The priory was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Then the property fell to the local landowners, the Percys of Alnwick Castle (Dukes of Northumberland). A part of priory buildings had been used as a hunting lodge as well as a pheasant keeper's house, which was a reason why the priory remains weren't completely knocked down. In the late 18th century a Gothic garden house was added at the property. Now it is still used by the Duke as a base for shooting, and also plays a role of a wedding venue.

The priory ruins were serene. It was worth visiting. We took a different route to go back to the entrance gate. It was longer than the way to the priory but it was nice to see different parts of the park. The return route ran along with the River Aln. More sheep on the way!

It was a action-packed day! We shared the blackberry almond cake from Alnmouth with tea. The cake was lovely. We had a very nice food experience finally on Day 4!

To be continued...