Northumberland Odyssey (Weetwood Walk)

As an early teaser, we visited the Matfen stone, pocked and proud, positioned in front of a lovely farmhouse named after the stone.

The target was further north, parking at Coldmartin mast reached via Wooler's Brewery Road. The strong wind was in evidence as soon as we opened the car doors!

Walking up past the mast and on a small raise to the north we found the first panel of rock art, sadly choked by lichen growth. Between gusts of wind I could hear the occasional skylark, making the day feel a bit warmer. Onward on the gorgeously soft and black peaty path (thankfully very dry today) between the heather, we walked on up to the area known as Whitsunbank. Again the lichen had taken a good root and much of the detail of the rock art is hidden. Continuing the route past the trig point and the gate to Fowberry, once more we were at Weetwood, my most frequently visited rock art site! On the return journey we took in a couple we'd missed on the way down.

Holy Island, and the Northumberland coast in general, is breezy at the best of times… but today has got to be one of the gustiest I've witnessed! And being Easter Monday the place was mobbed with tourists, some mistakenly dressed for a warm spring day, not the remnants of winter we had today. I finally got to go inside the castle, which I can now confirm is tiny compared to the hulking great lump as viewed from outside. The beach pebble hunt was an essential part of the day, producing some fine holey holy specimens.

On to Duddo stone circle… it's impossible to take a bad photograph of this place! It totally oozes art. The setting isn't too pretentious, the view is wide-open and it's accessible without being easy (perhaps summing up the rest of the local landscape). Fab! And the little pressies were a bonus.

On the way home we aimed for the Warrier Stone, which is very close to Matfen where we started the day before. They are very similar, cut from the same cloth as Duddo and even the Devil's Arrows in North Yorkshire, all made of sandstone placed up on end and sculpted by rain.

The presumed landowner of the Warrier Stone told us of the rock art at his front gate (bonus!) – the sun went down as we took the final snaps of the weekend. The wind was dying down and it still hadn't warmed up but somehow we managed to catch the sun on our faces for the first time this year.