[Bonham18]

I am going to University in Newcastle, starting this September, and obviously the amount of bouldering i'll be able to get in is very important!    My question is, without owning a car, and living in the centre of Newcastle, how difficult is access to the main quality bouldering and climbing sites using public transport? Thanks for your help!

[gme]

I would get saving for a car if I was you. Or become very friendly with those who do own one.
You can get to Bowden and kyloe areas by bus but it's a long trip ( hours not mins) then you still need to hitch the last four or five miles. And despite these areas being furthest away from the toon they are the easiest to get to by bus. 
Sorry to be so negative but it's the truth. I live in alnwick and the kids who don't drive struggle even from here.

[SA Chris]

Join the uni climbing club, get down http://news.climbnewcastle.com/, make friends, buy drinks, cadge lifts!

[Bonham18]

From what I could see with distances from Newcastle centre I feared that may be the answer. Thank you for your speedy and useful replies! A car is unfortunately not going to happen, so I will have to try and find out if the uni provides any form of transport for the mountaineering society (no bouldering society exists!). There must be a reasonable number of people wanting to get outdoors each week!?
Chris I will definitely be joining the climbing club, it's just difficult to know, without having actually started, how many people there will be with cars willing to get out regularly in shit weather etc, so was hoping for a good bus route back up. I suppose, if I can get climbing with some non students as well then there will definitely be some people with cars

[gme]

There is a pretty active scene who go out most weekends, just hang out at Climb Newcastle and you will meet up with potential lifts.

The Northumberland Mountaineering Club is the main club in the area who help me out a lot when i was a carless nipper.

I used to get upto Bowden and Kyloe a lot as a kid without a car using my thumb or the bus, people dont seem to do this much more. We used to head up for a couple of days at a time and doss at Back Bowden or Kyloe.

Ah great times, i am now starting to go into some starry eyed daydreaming.