Looking for new ways to get over the January blues, we try to get fit and relax our minds by looking at what you can do in Jesmond Dene and the connected parks.
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00:00I think it's, well, many things, like we're so lucky to have so many beautiful paths with trees,
00:06but also because you've got the play parks, Pets Corner, this is kind of something for everyone,
00:11so today we're here with some friends with their little girl, so we've actually been
00:14rollerblading alongside, but yeah, you can make it kind of a whole day out or just like a really
00:19nice dog walk, which is lovely. There are so many things to do in Jesmondeen, as well as in Heaton
00:25Park, Armstrong Park and Paddy Freemans. You can take the family to visit the animals in Pets Corner,
00:30you can have a walk along the hilly paths around the old mill, or you can enjoy a coffee at Millfield
00:34House. Yeah, it's just like an excuse to get out the house, I only live around the corner, so
00:38quite nice having it on the doorstep. Yeah, I was here visiting my sister, I just like to see
00:43people that I know around here. Yeah, I walked through Heaton Park on the way here,
00:47because my sister lives in Heaton, so yeah, it was a nice little walk, but a bit slippy.
00:54You can enjoy sliding down the slides in Heaton Park, a game of tennis at the Paddy Freemans,
00:58or even enjoy spotting the fantastically diverse birds and other wildlife while strolling along
01:03the park's many, many nature trails. I don't know, we always feel like nice and calm afterwards,
01:08you know, just enjoying getting out in nature, but we also like go for runs as well,
01:13if we can convince him to come with us, but it's like lovely for that,
01:18because you can easily get like a nice ice cream.
01:24The many different routes and terrains across the park network certainly lend themselves to
01:28all kinds of running. Every Saturday, hundreds of intrepid and possibly slightly mad runners
01:33race up and down these hills back here as part of the Jesmond Dean Park Run.
01:39On a Saturday morning, hundreds of park runners come along here,
01:44absolutely free of charge, running around Jesmond Dean, seeing the beautiful environment.
01:50But these hills are tiring to walk up, and while those runners run all the way up,
01:59I'll just quickly show you how far up we are. There's a valley down below you there.
02:08So yeah, if you want to come to Jesmond Dean on a Saturday morning and do a run,
02:14you certainly can do, but I'm out of puff from just walking it.
02:17I used to work at Newcastle University, and we also used the park a lot for some of the
02:22geography research that we were doing with the students, and that was amazing,
02:26to be able to get the students to come to a place on their doorstep and learn all about the river
02:31and how that functions, and we were studying things like the kind of local ecology as well.
02:38So it's really nice that we can also use it for science and also teaching the future
02:45generations about nature and the way in which I suppose the world works.
02:50Yeah, we've literally just walked through the bird bit and then just walking past it now,
02:54so we haven't had a proper look yet.
02:55We tried to speak to the parrot, but he didn't want to speak to us.