I’m standing by a sand dune listening to Kevin Anderson’s briefing on our coasteering trip, which is about to start. “Remember,” he says, “Seaweed slippy, barnacles grippy.” But my eye is being drawn to a strange object beside him. Is it a lectern inside a bag? Or a UFO that he found on the beach? Eventually curiosity gets the better of me and I ask what it is.
“That’s for another course. It’s a foil.” He takes the bag off to reveal two boogie boards – one thick and large, the other small and thin – connected by a strut. “You surf on the bigger board and use a hand-held inflatable wing – like a kite – to power it up. When you get some speed, it rises up and you go fast – it’s a hydrofoil. It’s new. Very powerful and very exciting.”
“Can I have a go?”
He hesitates: “Let’s go coasteering first.”
For my second UK adventure, I am in Beadnell, Northumberland, standing on what is, arguably, England’s greatest unsung treasure: the Northumbrian coast. From Tynemouth in the north to Berwick-on-Tweed this part of England is packed with wonderful beaches, islands, and cliffs, plus great little seaside villages, castles and ruins. Inland there is a lot, too: crags and hills to climb, dark skies to enjoy and wild waterfalls to swim in. But on this trip, I am sticking to the seaside.
Coasteering
We start at Howick, a few miles south of Beadnell, where the yellow sand beaches are smaller and interspersed with low cliffs and reefs.
Arriving at high tide, Kevin points out a few landmarks that we cannot see. “At low tide there’s a long reef out there with a shipwreck on the end: the Tadorne, a French trawler, that went down in 1913.”
Kevin worked for two decades at Nissan’s Sunderland plant, spending all his spare time racing sailing dinghies. Then one day a friend let him have a go on a windsurfer. It was a revelation. He sold his boat, resigned at Nissan and started a windsurfing school. Fifteen years later he is a Northumberland legend, mentoring young people to become top surfers, kite-surfers, windsurfers, and now as I discovered, wing surfers and wing foilers. His easy, friendly manner is matched by a careful attention to detail and he has an impressive knowledge of the sea, learned by sailing this treacherous coast from childhood.
The previous evening in Seahouses, I had spotted that dangerous heritage inside the Olde Ship Inn. Pieces of boat wrecks hang from the ceiling: lamps, figureheads and buoys. Hundreds of names and dates are plotted on a map of marine disasters for the area. Just a mile off Seahouses, of course, are the Farne Islands where, one winter night in 1838, a 22-year-old lighthouse keeper’s daughter called Grace Darling spotted the paddle-steamer Forfarshire wrecked on Big Harcar, a low rocky island about a mile away. She alerted her father and somehow the pair rowed a hefty boat across a raging sea to pick up survivors, an extraordinary act of heroism.
Unlike those shipwreck victims, we have crash helmets, life jackets and wetsuits. Kevin leads us into the sea. Amy, his assistant, swims with us to some rocks where we learn safe jumping techniques.
We swim into a little sheltered cove, then through a narrow tunnel into a deep pool where the water is a perfect aquamarine blue. Like this we swim and scramble our way to Rumbling Kern, a landmark plug of rock over a sea arch where we climb up and leap into the water. Kevin finishes the tour with a scramble down to a barnacle-encrusted rectangle of iron, all that remains of a first world war submarine. The entire morning is a brilliantly well-executed bit of fun.
We climb out next to the old bath house built by the 2nd Earl Grey, an 1830s prime minister whose name reminds us all that tea is needed. Fortunately the area has some tasty spots: The Landing right next to Kevin’s, KA Adventures HQ, is handy, but I try Carnaby’s cafe a few miles inland, which proves excellent.
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Rockpools and puffins
Of all the great sites along this coast, Bamburgh Castle stands out on its bastion of basalt, 46 metres above a superlative sandy beach. We walk north and reach Black Rocks Point lighthouse, which is surrounded by a clutch of wonderful rockpools. Some, like the Egg, have names, but my favourites are the tiny deep plunge pockets, miraculously sculpted by the sea with a few treasures in each: a handful of anenomes, a darting fish, and a shell selection.
It’s worth checking your exit before chucking yourself in: at least that’s what I say to Wilf, our dog, as I rescue him, again. On a sunny day, I’m told, the dark grey stone warms the tidal water up beautifully. On cloudy days, I can confirm, it doesn’t. We are rewarded, however, with the sight of two dolphins leaping vertically out of the sea a couple of hundred metres away. There is a pod of about 40 here and sightings are common.
Walk on from the point and there is a beach curving away towards Lindisfarne. A great adventure is to walk the sands across to Holy Island, a trip that requires an experienced guide, like Patrick Norris from Footsteps Northumberland. To get out to the Farne Islands, you need to join a boat trip with an outfit like Billy Shiels (from £20) from Seahouses harbour. Landing is still prohibited because of bird flu, but the boats delicately manoeuvre into position next to the cliffs, making up for that. You can get close enough to see the puffins with sand eels in their beaks; inquisitive grey seals pop up to look and the sea is so clear, you can watch them swim away underwater.
Wing surfing
Down on the beach at Beadnell, Kevin and his assistant James introduce me to wing surfing. First we inflate the bars that support the wing and spend time trotting up and down the beach, learning how this deceptively simple bit of kit behaves in the wind. Next we take paddleboards out on the water and, kneeling, I lift the wing. A gust comes banging in from the headland. The wing kicks and pulls in my hands. My body is the mast. The nose of the board gives a watery chuckle and spits out some spume. I am forging forwards. In an insanely complex world, everything has reduced to wind, water and me. I try not to fall off.
In every previous activity requiring balance, my first attempt quickly ends in a fall. I have no idea why: two left feet, both flat? But this time, I stay up and even stand. I love the direct visceral connection with the wind. I’m heading out to sea. I’m a long way out at sea. What’s Holland like at this time of year? I fall off. Kevin arrives on the rib and takes me back to the beach. I do this several times and manage to turn successfully.
Given time and practice, the next progression would be to exchange the paddleboard for a foil and go from wing surfer to wing foiler. A mere 10,000 hours later, I might make that rig leap from a breaking wave and fly like the experts. But I am very happy with a barge-like paddleboard under my feet and feeling the joy of the wind carrying me along this spectacular coast.
Accommodation was provided by Bamburgh Castle Inn (doubles from £116 B&B). KA Adventure Sports offers two hour wing surf/foil lessons; coasteering; also kitesurfing, surfing, SUP and kayak hireFor further information Visit Northumberland