Barnard Castle / Middleton-in-Teesdale
Bowlees Visitor Centre · Photo: Oliver Dixon
Walk from a little chapel visitor centre to a waterfall you can stand behind at Gibson's Cave and the tumbling cascades of Low Force. In the afternoon, a French-chateau museum in Barnard Castle where a mechanical silver swan performs every day at 2pm - and under-18s go free.
Nature & gardens · 10:00–12:45 (2h45m)
Short walks to Gibson's Cave and Low Force; lunch at the visitor centre cafe.
A small visitor centre and cafe in a converted chapel in Upper Teesdale, the start of short family walks to Gibson's Cave (a waterfall you can stand behind) and the river cascades at Low Force. A cheaper, gentler companion to High Force just upstream.
Photo: Oliver Dixon
Museum · 13:20–16:30 (3h10m)
Silver Swan at 14:00, then the galleries and the grounds' woodland walk and play area.
An indoor and outdoor museum in Barnard Castle.
Photo: Ann Clare
North EastSouth Shields / Whitburn
Climb a red-and-white striped Victorian lighthouse, run about on open clifftop grassland, then drop down to a cove where a giant sea stack is crowded with seabirds. Finish with a fish supper on the South Shields front.
Souter Lighthouse and The Leas → Marsden Bay → Colmans Seafood Temple
North EastMiddlesbrough
Dinosaurs, space and live reptiles at a free town museum, lunch and swan pedal boats in the big Victorian park at its gate, then a Georgian National Trust hall with a natural play area and a model railway layout.
Dorman Museum → Albert Park → Ormesby Hall
North EastNewcastle city centre / Quayside
A walkable Newcastle day that starts under the cathedral's lantern spire, crosses the Tyne on the tilting 'blinking eye' bridge and follows the river east into the Ouseburn valley. Lunch is among the pigs and goats at a free city farm, and the afternoon goes underground on a guided tour of a Victorian coal-wagon tunnel that sheltered people in the Blitz.
Newcastle Cathedral → Gateshead Millennium Bridge → Ouseburn Farm → Victoria Tunnel
