Thursday 6 June 2013

2454 A Tyne River cruise in the sunshine

There was fog at the mouth of the river Tyne yesterday morning June 4th 201 which lingered for most of the day and which was dense reducing visibility to the extent that in a boat in mid channel it was impossible to see either of the piers.

The fog was there when I went downstairs having planned to take a cruise on the Tyne but commencing in Newcastle. Fortunately it brightened sufficiently quickly for me to commence a packed lunch of four small home baked rolls filled with a pate, a small bag if cherries and two cans of Pepsi in a small cold bag with ice container.

The sun was warm as I went to the Metro station but I wondered if I should have brought a warmer coat, wearing my summer flannel as there is a cold wind off the river as the mouth is approached. I was not surprised how busy the train was as everyone seemed to be seizing the continuing good weather to be out and about. I then made a decision which worked out wonderfully well in terms of what could have happened. I stayed on the train on reaching Newcastle central station which was the stop for the shortest walk down to the quay side passing Monument and on to the Haymarket stop for the bus station when I just missed the every ten minute service to the quayside from the first stand.

It was while waiting that I suddenly remembered that I had not removed my cash from the thicker trousers worn the previous day when switching to the lighter pair I was wearing. I had no money to pay the £11 fare for a senior, a pound reduction on the adult charge and as there was no guarantee that a credit card machine would be available, I quickly rounded the corner back to the Metro station where again fortunately, there is a bank branch, my own, across the forecourt. The bus was back on station and ready to go as soon as I arrived with the driver having closed the doors, but again good fortune was me and he opened them again. This time the multi pass worked but I had to be reminded to take the ticket.

I was early for the river cruise with boarding at 11 am for the noon departure and alighted at the first quayside stop rather than continuing to the Millennium Bridge or the stop at the official end of the quay. It was a very pleasant morning and I use my phone the to take yet more photos of the bridges, the Sage and the Baltic although I am yet to find out what they are like as with the brightness I could not see what was in the frames.

There were already a few people out enjoying a late breakfast or just coffee at the restaurant bar opposite the Baltic. This brand has London city prices, yet the place was packed when I returned just after three as in fairness was every one of the street tables that now occupy every available space around every eaterie and bar in the city. I can remember what the quayside was like forty years ago when the cargo sheds remained, a score of then, from the days when Newcastle was a busy port and with the rest of river all the way to the sea, some thirteen miles alive with ship building and repair yards, cargo loading and loading docks, tug boats and customs.

I was also unsure give this was just the starting month of the river cruise season and a weekend if there would be sufficient customers for the three hour down river or later two hour up river trip and or the one hour around the city. The three craft used by River Escapes are moored midway between the Millennium Bridge and the end of the quayside. Along this stretch I noted a car park which although costing £1 for an hour £2 for two, cost only £3 for the day and on the bus ride down to the quay I noted that the extension Eldon Square Car Park is now free after 5pm which would ideal for visits to the Playhouse Theatre which I have to visited since finding that the Sleep Apnoea was affect my ability to enjoy the evening performances. It did occur that I would have to study the last traffic directions map I order to fid a way to reach both car parks!

Seeing a few people board one fo three boats I decided to make my way, paid the £11 and was disappointed that my ticket was retained by a young woman at the gang plank entrance after taking the lower river level pathway to the second and largest of the vessels. I secured a place on the top deck and was surprised and several of the later arrivals preferred the lower deck at the end of the boat and as the journey progressed down river their wisdom was evident sheltered from cold wind, enjoying drinks and food in the sunshine.

On both decks there was a number of chairs and tables (for 30 said at notice at the top) although there was only a couple at the front, me to one side and three men to the other and a woman on her own towards the rear. Half these vacated to lower deck before the River moth was reached because of the cold wind.

The first difference from my previous journey is that the Spillers factory site has been cleared although there is a Spillers Toffee making factory elsewhere in Newcastle. On the Newcastle side of the river the various warehouse Loft conversions, new flats, town house and maisonettes around St Peter’s basin and Ouseburn have been completed and with modest prices compared to London and the South generally where two and three bed properties are on the market at between £180000 and £250000 and with those closer to the town centre or with river views, riverside balconies commanding the higher prices. I will take the bus one day and continue to the Ouseburn where there is an attractive looking pub by the small boat basin,

There are few penthouses visible on both sides of the river and a large now well established Jury’s Inn development £55 without breakfast, £65 with on the Gateshead bank by the Baltic, and the huge Holiday Inn £72 with breakfast, two of several new hotels that have been added to the city, along with a Travel Lodge and Premier Inn, attracting business, conferences tourists and families visiting some of the seventy thousand students that are now in the city.

On the Gateshead bank down stream there is the Elephant on the Tyne, a 28 bed Hotel, restaurant and entertainment centre once owned by the traditional Geordie humour comic Bobby Pattison who along with the Little Waster, Bobby Thompson who owned and ran a Comedy Club in the centre of Gateshead once led the Comedy revival in the north east. Opposite hotel with a commanding riverside view is a residential block of accommodation. The site is in the area of the Gateshead stadium which I will be visiting of the European team Championship

Further along on this bank isolated is the giant Marine Paint factory complex which I believe still employs several thousand people and provide the paint required for some 40% of the British Naval Fleet. There are tree wooded banks on both sides of the river replacing former boat yards until reaching Hebburn where I once watched large vessels being launched from one of the many great shipyards on this stretch of the Tyne on to South and North Shields. Swan Hunters, Palmers yards at Jarrow and Hebburn, Armstrongs, Parsons Marine, McNulty marine etc. Now among the little craft marinas there are still cranes, some ship repairs, North Sea Platforms and repair and maintenance and cabling. There is also the giant coal dock between Shields and Jarrow opened by the Queen mother but where now the coal comes in from Russia and Poland. The mountain of white goods destined for China appears to have gone.

Palmers of Jarrow went because its owner was wedded to building naval craft when the nation hoped the need had reduced with the end of the First Word War. An opportunity to retain a large port was missed when the idea of creating new docks at Jarrow by filling in the sandbanks at Jarrow Slake was rejected until more recent decades when the arrival of the Nissan car works, their most successful in the world, was created at Washington Sunderland and a car export port was required. Now thousands of vehicle were gleaning in the sunshine waiting to be shipped around the world.

The great Tyne Dock is no longer with the last created used for the second Tyne river road Tunnel completed two years ago. It said that up two hundred sail mastered ships once used the docks in its heydays. Middle docks South Shields is also now derelict and only partly cleared with the ambitious plans for the site appearing now to be on hold until the Town centre development has been completed.

As recently mentioned on the cross Tyne ferry visit, North Tyneside has cleared the former dockland area on its North Bank but again there as yet no signs of development. What has been created with some success is the North Tyneside Ferry Port. These are huge Channel crossing passenger and Lorry Transport vessels and adjacent to the ferry terminal is also the berth now used for visiting cruise liners, from time to time.

Our small craft, by comparison, continued in a growing wind into the dense fog between the two piers turning as the official entrance to the river was reached passing once more between the two buoys which marked the channel with rocks, the black maddens on one side and sand banks on the other. I have promised myself a visit to the Fish Quay and do the walk from the beach area to Tynemouth.

Yesterday discovering that my vehicle urgently needed its MOT I visited the Customs House area after the vehicle was taken to the garage to purchase my ticket for the Traditional Jazz and Blues evening at the end of October associated with the Whitely Bay Jazz weekend. I noted that the Coffee shop and bar premises which was once one of three public houses on the road down to the Customs House complex, the first a sports and karaoke bar and the third a real ale specialist was now closed.. It was on this walk that I realised that the new amphitheatre is being located at the Customs House end of the new Riverside park although my query whether it would be ready in three weeks time for the proposed large screen relay from Glastonbury remains. I then went over to Asda buying a chicken for the weekend, some, dried figs, individual quiche and a pack of smoked mackerel. I then enjoyed a pot of tea and a chocolate brownie(£1.80) in the cafe until notified that the vehicle had passed without requiring immediate additional work although the advisory suggests that I will need to start saving now to attend to various works which will be required sometime when the service is due in December and by next Spring time.

As soon as the cruise craft turned up river I went to the bar on the lower deck for a coffee and cake bar £2.80 and warmed up although once up river we lost the cold wind and I was able to relax and enjoy the speedy return to the city. The Millennium bridge had been opened for the start of venture and I had listened to the 60th anniversary of the Coronation ceremony from Westminster Abbey which seemed a fitting event as I remembered my forty years on Tyne and Wearside.

Back at the quay I decided to walk up to Haymarket, fist along the Quay and then up the great Georgian Street, Grey Street to the Monument, passing Eldon Square full of people enjoying the sunshine and then to the Haymarket Station where a young man was having trouble finding his pass which he did. It was on the walk back that I appreciated the extent to which every available pavement space was being used by shoppers and visitors enjoying this first real taste of summer. I was back home just before five pleased I had interpreted the weather conditions correctly. It had been a good day.

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