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FOREWORD

Warkworth, Bamburgh, Lindisfarne, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Norham and Edinburgh are as tantalizing a roll call of castles as you will ever find. Mix this with the riverside escape from the great city of Newcastle to the wide sea views over Whitley Bay and Druridge Bay, and the empty roads across the border you get on close to cyclists’ paradise as you can in these isles. The start is especially good if Gateshead’s Millennium Bridge “blinks” and I am very fond of the uncertainty of the tidal crossing to Holy Island where the temptation to be marooned in the refuge tower struggles with the desire to move on. Take time at Berwick to see the ramparts that defended this frontier town – a town which was until recently still “officially” at war with Russia!

You will now find that the waymarking has been improved and the section from Goswick to Beal now avoids the track beside the rail line. The fact that Sustrans could devise a route from England to Scotland which crosses the Tweed on the Union Bridge from Scotland back to England is quite a feat and I am particularly pleased that St Boswells, Melrose and Galashiels, three romantic places off the beaten track to the north, are all central to the Coast & Castles Route. Edinburgh is one of those cities which is striking from a great distance, as well as memorable, and you will find that the view from the Moorfoot Hills is all that you might have wished for.
I hope that you enjoy this route, a cycling journey made all the more possible with Mark Porter’s excellent guide, now in its 3rd edition, and that you will return home refreshed and inspired to cycle more, and to persuade your friends and neighbours to do so too.

John Grimshaw,
Director & Chief Engineer
SUSTRANS