Running two hundred miles from Newcastle to Edinburgh, the Coast and Castles Cycle Route promised to be a journey through millennia of turbulent history and fabulous scenery. It proved to be more than just ruined castles and wild coastline. More industrial heritage, more rain, more cross dressing stag nights, more stunning beaches, more wildlife, more grave robbers, more railways, more tea rooms and the Moorfoot Hills.

Close encounters with seagulls, precocious children, warrior-like toddlers and bathroom cleaning products were all in a day's cycling for the author as she pedalled north, passing remote beaches, wooded river valleys and more castles than you could shake a bicycle pump at.

Written with self-deprecating humour and a wry eye for detail, Cycles and Sandcastles is a narrative of the history, the scenery and the flavours of a bike ride through Northumberland and the Scottish Borders.