Newcastle to Whitley Bay.

Well, I made it, I've completed day one. That sounds as though it was a bit arduous but I really enjoyed it.
James cycled with me from his home in Leeds to the railway station, I was quite nervous about riding a heavily laden bike through the roadworks and traffic of Leeds. En route another cyclist commented that she did not think we had shared the load very well; James was riding his bare skinny speedy road bike. Whilst my bike is more of a pack horse, James' is a racehorse. 
James put the bike on the train for me, although the allocated space was big enough I was worried that with the swaying of the train the bike would topple over, so I sat with it to Newcastle to avoid any embarrassing incidents.
On arriving in Newcastle I fortified myself with coffee and a muffin and purposefully pushed my bike out of the station. I was not keen to ride, not knowing quite where I was going in a strange and busy city.  It took me a little while to get to the cycle route along the river, but wow, what an impression the bridges and riverside made. I think it was partly inspired by an emotional response, Newcastle is where I was born and although I never lived there there is something deep within that reacts to "coming home". 
I climbed on my bike and pedalled off along the cycle route, it was a real pleasure, a wide traffic free path running along the banks of the Tyne. The route is for the most part well sign posted, I cycled past the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall and before too long I was at Tynemouth and the first castle of the "Coast and Castles" route. The coast really is beautiful, clean sandy beaches, lots of big rock pools and at the moment very few people and beyond it all the vast expanse of the North Sea.
I arrived in Whitley Bay at about four o'clock, located my B&B, and settled down to blog. I spent about half an hour or so writing only to lose everything when I tried to save it. I have now decided to write in the iPad notebook first, I can then copy it to the blog and not worry about the vagaries of google's programming.
I hope day two is as enjoyable as day one and that I manage to cycle a bit further.