5th Day - Newie / Ferry to Rotterdam

Left the apartment early. The whole city is empty on Sunday mornings, I guess everyone is sleeping off their hangover. No bakeries open, so no Singing Hinnys. Very disappointing!

Walked around for a bit, visited the world's worst lookout. I had to cut the picture of it because I'm limited to 25 photos, and I wanted to include, you know, things that are actually interesting to look at, so all I can do is assure you it was a very terrible lookout indeed.

Train to Hexham at 9:00am, Buckie bought sausage roll from Greggs at the station that was disappointingly cold. Greggs are kind of like mini Baker's Delights, and they are everywhere.

At Hexham we had 30 minutes until the bus, so we walked up the hill toward a cathedral. It was closer than expected, So we got to it with plenty of time, but again, pictures of it did not make the final cut.

Bus to Chesters Roman Fort and Museum. The bus is called AD122, which is a reference to the year 122 AD which is the year Emperor Hadrian gave the order to begin construction of Hadrian's wall. Chesters was a fort built along the wall, even extended a bit beyond it and had a town pop up behind it with all the camp followers that usually spring up wherever there is an army around.

Of the actual wall there wasn't much, it is almost only the fort that is visitable. I've included a photo of one of the small, fenced off sections of the wall. Enough to say I'd been to the wall and actually seen it.

Buckie and I had much spirited debate over whether or not to enter the fenced off areas. I continued to argue against it even after the sign giving you permission to enter was pointed out to me.

The fort is located next to a river. Interestingly on the barbarian side. It seems intuitive to wall off along the south side, as the river would be an additional and substantial defensive barrier. We speculated that perhaps the river was an important trade route and thus needed protection.

In some of the photos you can see what is left of the underfloor. Basically they placed large flat stones over pillars to create a cavity beneath. In this cavity a fire was lit to boil water, the resulting steam would waft throughout the cavity and heating the room above.

There is also an underground treasury, this was obviously strongly constructed which is why it survives to this day. Above the treasury was a large open indoor space for meetings and ceremonies. Statues of gods adorned this room and religious services carried out. This served the dual purpose of having the treasury guarded by the gods as well as men.

The pictures of Buckie and I posing. We are standing on the southern side of the wall looking out beyond the pale, holding the line against the uncivilised and cruel barbarians of the north!

I was always careful to never actually touch or step on the stones, though were some kids running along the tops of the walls that caused me to clench my teeth harder than Stannis would have.

The wall is only 80kms long. It is on my bucket list to hike the length of it. One day.

On the way back we discovered the ferry to Amsterdam we planned to take had been fully booked. Word had gotten out that we were going to travel on the ferry, so various fans and influencers bought up the remaining tickets in hope of getting a selfie with us.

We needed to make new plans. And fast. The train back to Newie, that we had tickets for, was approaching and we had to decide if we were going to get on it or stay and visit more Hadrian's wall and take the ferry tomorrow. Found a different ferry that was leaving today but from Hull to Rotterdam. Checking the train schedule, we could just make it using the following:

Hexham -> Newie -> Doncaster -> Hull

Tight but doable.

Went fine until Doncaster. Train was initially.... 9 to 3 minutes, window was 10, at the station we were 10 minutes behind. Looking up diagrams of Doncaster station but they were difficult to find. Ran to platform 0, yes zero. But no dice. Never even saw the train.

Immediately Ubered to Hull. Romanian driver. Drives a white Tesla Model 3 so obviously he is very cool and smart. Have great conversations about Romania and the UK. Drove quite very fast, at one point doing 90 in a 60 zone.

The email said we had to get there 90 minutes before the ferry departed and we got there EXACTLY 90 mins early. The staff at the terminal were very relaxed, I'm sure they would have let us board up until the last minute.

Buckie declared a 200ml bottle of booze, they seemed surprised someone would do this and seemed to lack a procedure to handle it. After a bit they very casually took the bottle and vaguely assured we could get it at the other end, no ticket to claim it later or anything.

Interestingly there was no security screening, just passports - I learned the baggage search/scanners/etc are just if you are travelling on an aircraft. Makes sense I guess.

Accepted an offer to upgrade our room to bigger beds for 25 pounds. Dinner at buffet, very nice. Serving staff were extremely eager to take used plates away (we joked that they are paid per dirty plate they return to the kitchen).

Water pressure in the bathroom sink was insane.

We were sharing a room for the only time on this trip. They do not offer single person berths and a double is $600 AUD. Both of us slept well and neither heard the other snore, so that was good.

Next stop, Rotterdam.Read more