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| Hadrian's Wall |
From Coniston in the Lake District we headed north toward our first stop in Carlisle. Carlisle, just south of the Scottish border, was a historical roman town built to support the forts of Hadrian's Wall. The town itself is fairly unremarkable but it did have a nice fort and an interesting church, and, more importantly, nice wide roads!
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| Carlisle Castle, built in 1092. |
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| Parents be on your guard.... |
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| Carlisle Church. It had an amazing stained glass window as you can see. It was also really wonky because a 14th century church had been built on the remains of a 12th century church. |
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| Incredibly blue 18th century ceiling. |
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| Hadrian's Wall |
From Carlisle we headed east, roughly along the path of Hadrian's Wall. The wall is very impressive- it follows the hilly contour of a ridge and is surprisingly solid and well preserved. We had a closer look at the wall at Housesteads Roman Fort. The fort was one of the many used to police Hadrian's Wall and even though there are only ruins remaining, the skill and technology they obviously had is incredible.
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| Us at Housesteads Roman Fort |
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| I was particularly impressed with this Roman Latrine. The stone channels have been made so that gravity keeps the water flowing constantly around, providing clean water for washing. Down below the latrine is also angled, draining the waste away in the opposite direction. Very clever stuff. |
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| The Granary- the blocks are used to support a raised floor, providing circulating air beneath the grain. |
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| Hadrian's Wall |
We followed Hadrian's Wall to the east coast of Northumbria, staying the night at a site just north of Newcastle. I mention this place because it was the worst campsite we've stayed at. Oh my god, a complete trailer-trash hell hole! Still, we had a nice view and it definitely got us up and out of there quickly the next day!
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| From this angle the place looks okay.... |
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| ......and it did have a nice rocky shore thing going on. |
From here we headed north along the coast. Our first stop was in the town of Warkworth, which is twinned with...Warkworth, NZ, where I was born! We visited the Castle which was partly ruined and partly intact. Being school holidays they had a medieval fair on for the kids and a few ladies in bust-flattering costumes for the Dad's.
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| Warkworth Castle |
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| This was my favourite scene from the medieval play- the gallant knight (giggling kinder) is being mauled (tickled) by the ferocious wild boar (pink plastic pig). Super cute! |
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| The ruined part of the castle had been de-constructed/fallen apart in a very cool way. Reminded me of the final scene from The Labyrinth for some reason. |
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| View from the Castle over Warkworth and Amble (in the distance) |
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| Sidey madness |
That night we stayed in Alnwick, at our first "Certified Location". These are smaller sites, usually only with 5 or 10 spots, often attached to a business, in this case, a pub. How convenient! It was a great little site and the pub was run by a very friendly, slightly mad chap. We were slightly taken aback initially by the lack of a menu ("just let me know what you would like") but luckily he was a great, and very speedy, cook. It was also pretty amusing to hear a fellow guest say "No, no, I couldn't do a full english breakfast! I'll just have eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms and toast"!
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| Lights, camera, lame pose. This castle was used in filming of "Robin Hood", the version with Russell Crowe. |
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| The great hall. The ceiling is held together by wooden pins. |
I'll finish with the weather report. Don't let the photos fool you. We have had a few sunny moments through the week but it's otherwise been pretty consistently grey, sometimes rainy and definitely cold!
From here we head north to Scotland.
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