At last we managed to get a handful of bodies out on a midweeker. We left the Gollum's pad about 7.15pm and headed straight down to the riverside through deepest, darkest Walker onto the C2C Cycle Route on the north side of the Tyne. Apart from getting trapped inside a 6 foot high steel mesh compound near Spillers Mill it was a quick dash to the Millennium Bridge in very light drizzle.

Over the bridge the drizzle stopped and we continued on the Keelman's Way/South Tyne Cycleway through Gateshead's North Shore (NOT MTB North Shore, I hasten to add) along various bits of bridleway and road past the tourist-friendly "Contaminated Land" signs next to the C2C Route, through Hebburn and finally into Jarrow. We entered the lift at the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel (see photos later this week) and descended to the Tunnel below, where the wind whistles through your apertures at speeds up to 40 on the shiny tiled floor for half a mile. Forty years ago I fell off a cycle speedway bike in here at nowhere near that speed and could have done with a skin graft.

The crush getting into the lift had been pretty awkward for four of us with big sussers so we took the extremely steep and unique wooden-stepped escalator back up at North Shields. Didn't seem five minutes since we left home! Out onto Hadrian's Cycleway and back into Howdon, up to Church Bank at Rosehill and following Jason down the long steps into Wallsend Burn for a noisy finish with only a mile to go back to base. (I won the Crow Bank Climb out of the Burn in the Grannies!).