Dumfries and Galloway

Today was mainly a day of travel to get us in a position to catch the ferry from Cairnryan in Scotland to Belfast in Northern Ireland first thing tomorrow morning.

We left Keswick with a high overcast at about 8.45 this morning after an alarm-free night’s sleep to get us to Birdoswald Roman Fort / Hadrian’s wall right at 10am for their opening time. As always, we took the slightly longer scenic route around the western side of Bassenthwaite Lake - our last lake for the district - before heading north east.

This fortress and section of Hadrian’s wall is the best preserved and longest intact section of the wall that spans the entire island in an east / west direction (approx. 135km in length) and marked the northern border of the Roman Empire in this area.
We were fortunate to time it well so as to join a free guided tour by one of the volunteers who took us for a walk around the site and our guide explained a lot of detail that would not be easily grasped otherwise.
Also of note is that while Hadrian was busy shoring up the strength of the Roman Empire in Britain, he also played a very significant role in scattering the Jews from the land of Israel. His edict in 135 A.D. forbad Jews to live in and around Jerusalem and he renamed Jerusalem Aeolia Capitolina in a further effort to erase Jewish links to the country and city. Interestingly, Hadrian’s edict was not rescinded until 1856 and this was one of the small steps that paved the way for the Jews to return to their homeland.

While waiting for the tour to start we got chatting to a father and son who were walking the entire length of the wall. They were 3 days in, with probably 3 to go and were carrying very heavy packs with all their gear. The father in particular was struggling with sore feet and they were lamenting the fact that they should have more closely followed the age-old rule of ANY traveller - take half the clothes and twice the money to what you’ll think you need.

We headed north for the Scottish border which was a bit of an anticlimax. Apart from the obligatory ‘Welcome to Scotland’ road sign, there was nothing else to really signify the fact we had passed from one country to another. No river or lake or significant natural feature nor any observable man-made structure. Even the surrounding terrain looked identical. Perhaps the only distinguishing feature was that once we left the main motorway, the secondary roads were in noticeably poorer condition in Scotland than in England.
And the skies started clearing almost immediately once we crossed the border!

Our first stop was at Lockerbie which was not directly enroute to Stranraer which was our final destination.
Both Loriene and I were interested to visit the memorial park in Lockerbie which was the site of the UK’s worst ever aviation disaster in December 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 enroute from Frankfurt to Detroit was blown up by a Libyan terrorist bomb (hidden in a cassette recorder on unaccompanied baggage - an act which changed aviation security forever).
The aircraft exploded into thousands of pieces directly overhead Lockerbie, and a large section of the wings and fuel tanks crashed into a suburban street killing 11 people on the ground, as well as all 243 passengers and 16 crew. It was an act of terrorism that shocked the world and I’m sure I speak on behalf of all those who remember it in saying that it deeply affected us all.
Our Belinda was just 6 months old at the time and as new parents we keenly felt the distress of the situation. Today we had a quiet moment at the memorial park situated on the site of where lives were lost and the houses were destroyed by the falling debris, reflecting on the need for our Lord’s return to eliminate the evil in the world.
Sadly a young American Christadelphian brother was onboard that ill-fated flight.

After this sobering time, we continued on further into Lockerbie to re-provison and then (again) took the more scenic and circuitous route to Stranraer. We headed south to intercept the coastline.
Given the fact we were making realtively good time, while Loriene was shopping at Aldi I consulted a website which assured me that the coastal towns in the southwest were stunningly scenic. Based on this, we detoured via Southerness Lighthouse, Sandyhills Bay and Auchencairn Bay which, to be honest, were relatively unremarkable.

Now it was getting late so we bee-lined it for Stranraer and got to our excellent self contained apartment just over an hour later. From our living room window we can see the ferry terminal across the bay where we need to check in at 6.30am tomorrow for our journey to Belfast.Read more