The Sun is sinking behind me; its gaunt light fading away to
the West; a little earlier, I think, than it probably should for late Spring.
But it’s not unexpected; from a murky dawn, the Sun has struggled to pierce the
low canopy of brooding nimbostratus clouds which have, all day, been dragging
their way across Northumbria’s leaden skies.
I’m stood just a few hundred yards from our campsite on the
outskirts of Beadnell Village, facing East over the North Sea. And I find it
amazing to consider that the only thing that lies between me and the unseen
shores of Denmark’s West Jutland coast, are 460 miles of heaving, iron black waters.
It’s a truly awesome sight and leaves me feeling very insignificant; very small.
The silence is almost deafening; save, that is, from the
belligerent howls from an affray of vagrant squalls which pirouette along the
shoreline and - seemingly vexed by my presence – tug at my collar and cuffs
while pitching thin veils of rain my way.
But I’m not minded to leave, not yet.
This is an infamously rugged and austere region of Britains
coastline; and my own inconsequence within it only seems to be exaggerated as I
stand before its broad (almost eerie) expanse of craggy, slab-like rock
formations; formations laid down millions of years ago as layers of
foundational sandstone blocks which have subsequently - over countless
millennia - been fractured and fragmented by the dynamic forces of powerful
tectonic drifts, and further mutilated by the merciless grinding of relentless
glacial migrations, leaving this tortured vista as we see it today: desolate,
fractured and broken; a coldly picturesque prehistoric panorama rendered in a bleak
palette of blacks and greys.
And, amplifying my sense of detachment, now, from the modern
world, is the fact that I’m completely alone out here; there’s not another soul
in sight; not one solitary human being with whom I might share the awesome
spectacle of this broad and ruggedly beautiful shoreline.
The tide is out just now, and as the decline of the land is
very shallow here, so the sea has receded a fair distance from the shore. But
even while the growing stain of night’s gloom continues to congeal around me, I
can still just about make out the foaming tops of distant waves and hear them
crash against the shore.
And there I am, standing – still quite alone - before this
austere, unwelcoming landscape; quietly surveying the consequence of eons of passing
time. And, despite the dark; despite the chilly chagrin of squalling wind
devils, I can’t help but be in awe of this ancient, tortured, but wonderfully
alluring landscape.
