Day 3, Hadrians wall and Newcastle

Hadrians wall and a mile castle

This morning it was pouring down in Ullswater. After an early breakfast we walked down to the lake to have a look at the landscape we did not see when we drove here during the evening. I am quite amazed by how quickly it is getting dark here and how dark it is. I live in a country where we have 4 months of darkness, but the twilight period is much longer than in England and when we have some snow it will be much lighter and then we don´t have trees and things like that blocking the light ;0)

Sycamore Gap

Anna at Sycamore Gap

Today we drove over to Hadrians wall (the roman wall) to meet up with Philip (one of my facebook friends who had heard we were travelling in England). The route took us through Penrith to Alston and Haltwhistle. We met Philip on the Twice Brewed Inn, close to the wall and then we had our very own guide to walk with us on the wall and give us the story of the sites. We walked some km along the wall over to Sycamore Gap (the Robin Hood tree) and then back again to the cars on the foot of the hill, thereby seeing more of the scenery. It is very impressive that the Romans built this wall, 120 km long in only 6 years. Much of the wall has been torn down and used for other things, but it is still worth a visit. After a shandy (beer and lemonade) we drove over to Housesteads fort. It used to accomodate 800 soldiers and had all the luxury as heated floors and well working latrines. Unfortunately the site was closed down for the season (as many other places in England and Scotland) but we still had a chance to walkd around... During our stay on the wall it did not rain at all so we were quite lucky with the weather:D
Philip invited us for dinner at his favourite inn, the Sheperd and Sheperdess in Beamish. It was a very good choice. The pub was very old and kozy and had some great food. Annas friend Jonina which she had not seen in 16 years lives in Newcastle and had invited us to stay with her for the night, so she came to Beamish to join us for dinner. After a good long dinner we said goodbye to Philip and drove to Joninas place in South Shields. The distance today was 190 km.

Day 3

Hadrians wall