This stage was timed to coincide with Picnopolis on Baltic Square outside the Sage Gatehead. We wondered to what extent this arts initiative had captured local imagination.
Before that though, we walked our local stretch of the Tyne around the Ouseburn. However, it wasn’t until today that we learnt about the plans for the Ouseburn Barrage which will raise the level of the Ouseburn, here where it meets the Tyne, making the historic Ouseburn Valley, already well worth a visit, a much more attractive leisure facility. Work should be completed in 2009.
Newcastle Quayside was surprisingly quiet, despite being the current site of a mobile art exhibition, the Tyne Salmon Trail, which celebrates the Tyne’s status as England’s foremost salmon river. The promised Bluetooth message to our phones didn’t arrive though. Has anyone received one?
Across the Millenium Bridge and past the picnickers for a refreshment break at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. To be honest, the Picnopolis grand finale was a bit of a damp squib. There were people sitting around on these little aeroplane shaped individiual picnic sites but they looked self conscious and only a few had much food that we could see. There was a band and a forlorn ice cream salesman. We pressed on, popping into the Tourist Information Office in the Guildhall. Here we bought Jonas’s guide to the North Tyne. This is becoming addictive.
The riverside path continues all the way past Scotswood with lots of panels describing the areas industrial history – Armstrong’s factory etc. Then you come off the river for a while, past a panel about the Blaydon Races, and follow the Hadriansway cycle route towards Newburn via the riverside park. It begins to feel much more rural here.
Not much traffic on the river today though. We saw a police boat, a couple of jet skiers and a water skier.
Flora and Fauna Lots of gulls – keep meaning to learn how to identify them with certainty but blackheaded and lesser blackbacked, I think; quite alot of lapwings; several cormorants; a curlew; redshank; dunlin; a heron; a rat.
Transport Walked to St Peter’s Basin and were delighted and surprised to discover the number 22 bus goes from Newburn to Wallsend via Shields Road ( and all for £2). Walked from there.
Tags: art
