Newcastle for the View and some Ice Cream

On bank holiday Monday after finding Tollymore Forest Park very pretty but understandably packed, we queued into Newcastle and luckily managed to find a space in the middle of the main street.

As soon as we were out of the car and found somewhere out of the flow of people, the decision was made to make a bee-line for ice cream. We queued for a wee while in the famous Maud's by the river before getting our hands on a sugary treat, mine was a Strawberry and Chocolate medium tub and it eyed me up so badly that I couldn't help but start digging into it before we made it to the stone benches overlooking the beach, the footbridge and the river.

It was a pretty scene and oddly there were less people sat around here then had been in a stones throw of us sat on the grass by the parked cars on the hill in the forest park. I wandered off a little to try out my new camera's sweep panorama mode some more and was pretty pleased with the results that you can see at the top of this post but eventually it was time to head on. We walked a little way down the sea front...

...and then cut up an alley back onto the main street.

The clouds were still hiding the sun that in turn was hiding a fully lit view of the Mourne Mountains - which was a shame.

We made our way back to the car and got into the long queue to leave Newcastle. At that point the sun came out and it was like a hot summers day and really like the seaside we all like to remember it as. Also whilst in the queue, one of Norngirl's cousins and aunty gave us a quick scare as they got our attentions from the pavement by banging on the window whilst we were stationary... as I was saying, everyone seemed to be heading to the coast.

It was a pleasant ride home listening to music I'd not heard in a while like Garth Brooks' 'Friends in Low Places' before heading home for a night watching Bones episodes. It turned out to be a really nice day even with all the queues.