Our mini cruise, day two

We woke up to coffee being delivered to our cabin and we watched the ship go up the Tyne to its mooring in Newcastle. We had a hearty breakfast and got ready to disembark and get the courtesy bus into town.

The bus dropped us by the police station and we made our way down to the river where there was a Sunday market being set up.

Along the river Tyne

We had a lovely walk along the river looking at the various stalls... selling things from home made jewellery, some amazing glass mosaics to food products, like home made cakes, bread, jams and chutneys,  We didnt have too much time as we had to get back to the boat by 12 noon.  We walked along the river to the Millenium bridge and then made our way back to the bus.  By this time the sun had finally started to come out.

The Millenium Bridge in the background

The Millenium Bridge

The Tyne Bridge

We arrived back at the ship about 12 noon... managed to get a quick photo of the boat before boarding... our room was about 4th from the right.  Another shot of the boat is below.  It was hard to get good photo so close up to the ship!

Quest for Adventure

Quest for Adventure

Back on the ship we went to the Verandah "self service" restaurant for lunch where we both had steak and Newcastle ale pie which was absolutely delicious.  Everything we ate on board was fantastic.  Paul served up desert - so we had 2 large portions of plum sponge cake with custard - yum!

After eating all of that we needed to walk some of it off so we went out on deck and watched the ship sail out of the Tyne on its way to the North Sea.

DFDS Ferry to Ijmuiden

Thompson Cruise Ship

It became very noisy as we passed these two ships as our ship acknowleged them with several loud blasts on the ship's horn and they reciprocated!  Great fun!  As we continued down the river we came across the RNLA having and open day and the lifeboat was performing various manoeuvres - mainly going round in circles which was very impressive!

RNLI lifeboat

As we got closer to the North Sea, we said good bye to the pilot to more "hoots" on the ship's horn.  It was becoming more and more windy so after walking around on deck for a while we decided to head inside to a relaxing read in the library.

The pilot leaving our ship, next stop North Sea

I took a couple more pictures outside before we were blown off deck!!

The swimming pool from above

Deck above the pool

 So after reading and relaxing for a while in the library we decided to go and chill in our cabin before getting ready for cocktails before dinner.  I had a pina colada complete with fruit and umbrella and Paul had a BBC which was a Baileys Irish cream, creme de bananes and pina colada mix again with fruit and brollie... he said he felt like Del boy!

Dinner was another fabulous 5 course feast with fantastic service as always. There were always interesting people to chat to over dinner.  I was concerned about sitting with different people each evening at meal times but everyone we met was so friendly.