Hadrian’s Wall 2023

Today was a big, big day.

We had a pleasant enough sleep in our quad room at the church/ hostel.

The nights are hot and the Brit’s don’t appear to do aircon and all the rooms have the smallest windows.

All irrelevant, I will move on….

We started the journey this morning with a visit to Thirwall castle, largely abandoned in the 14th century and left to fall apart. There is something about it though and I was very much looking forward to seeing it.

Beautiful in its decayed state.

From here it was very much up and down, we anticipated hills but oh my.

The Hadrian’s Wall follows the craggs ( cliffs) for miles going steeply up one cliff followed by a steep decent. We followed this roller coaster for quite a number of hours.

The amount of wall that we followed was overwhelming, it’s quite surreal to think this is what we are walking beside.

We also came to Chester’s Fort which is essentially in a farmyard. It is one of the only Forts on the wall with a visible alter stone.

The afternoon continued with the extreme ups and downs you could only marvel at what we were walking beside.

Made it to “Twice Brewed”brewery where we are staying tonight.

The brewery is about 1 mile away from Vindolanda, an incredible Fort. 

The largest on the wall

One of the original early digs dating back to the 19th century. There are still active digs now.

There is a museum which houses an extraordinary number of treasures that have been found, including 70 pairs of leather shoes found on the first day.

When we had our fill of looking at all the old stuff, we very bravely waited on the side of the road for a bus.

I hadn’t mentioned when we were at the pub enquiring about taxis or buses, a lovely lady named Joan chose to take us on her way home( she worked at the pub)

The kindness of strangers, seriously…

Back to the pub for showers, beer and a roast dinner. Well it is Sunday 😁