There really are lots of castles in Northumberland. At one point on our holiday Marisca grumbled 'not another castle' but really they're quite good places for children, little bits of hide and seek, lots of space, and occasionally audio tour things for them to steal from their parents. I've lost count of the ones that we saw, but our favourite was definitely Dunstanburgh, which we could see (ish) and walk to from the campsite.
This is actually Etal castle where Marisca did quite a tricky quiz by reading all of the sides about the Battle of Flodden in the exhibition. And then coloured in the England and Scotland flags in the colours she thought they should be (more fun but a nightmare for face painters).
So, yes, we had a day walking the mile or two to the castle on the coast. It was lovely to have Marisca walking and she didn't really complain about any of it. Her favourite thing I think was opening and closing the gates while my favourite was watching her happily walking away down the footpath.
Thomas was generally carried until we came to the stile, which he is negotiating here with his own toddler style.
Here's the castle.
Here's a bit of playing.
And here's both the best shot and a more typical shot of trying to get a nice picture with them both and one of the towers in the background where we sat for lunch.
There was a really nice path around the walls of the castle with most of the interior given to meadowy coastal grassy stuff. One thistle flower exhibited two bees and two butterflies at one time which was quite impressive. This picture is lovely but doesn't exactly match my memory of how easy it was to get Tom around the walls...
And finally, well, it's the same castle but a different day. A little light beach trip after the raininess of the weekend, a fun few minutes but a bit too brisk for swimming!
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