The Whitley Bay Experience - or "Smoke Signals from Northern England"

As mentioned in our last post Readers we have travelled through Northern England to the town of Whitley Bay. We are devoting an entire post to this "experience" as in Dorothy's own words "we would never chosen to have stayed in a place like that - I would have made Phillip reverse out the drive and keep on going...." but we are very glad we did!

Our rally information states "Whitley Bay is famous for its wild nights out, with visitors from all over England coming for a big party night out". Yes readers, this is Bucks' and Hens' favourite party spot and do they party!

Not to be outdone, the Indian Invaders put effort into their partying and as you can see fitted right in. The Avalon Bar and Hotel where we stayed is in the main party street of Whitley Bay, South Parade. We Aussies think these poms are strange.... the girls and boys come out to play at about 5pm - staggering along the streets in their party attire (which they have put considerable time and money into preparing - and what results!!!!!!!!! We have never seen such expanses of wobbling flesh, cleavage or heels so high). They chant and yell for about 6 or 7 hours and by midnight they have finished throwing up in the street or canoodling down a side street and literally, the place grinds to a halt by midnight. Weird. The bars are empty by 1am except for a couple of live music venues and then the curfew is 2am. At times we thought it was safer to stay behind the fence of our accomodation rather than venture onto the street!

Conor and our host





Leaving the Avalon wearing our new black Tshirts

We did do some sight seeing during our 2 night stay in this party paradise. Many of our group took the opportunity to ride to see the plethora of castles in the area - the Harry Potter castle where the Quidditch matches are filmed - Alnwick Castle and several others.

Others chose to swim in the North Sea or just wander around the town.

John also took some of us on a tour of the Life Brigade Watch House at Tynemouth where he is alongstanding volunteer.

We bid farewell to Whitley Bay to traveled south through Whitby (where the series "Heartbeat" was filmed) and over the moors to York.