Haydon

Long driving day today! We left reasonably early and decided to keep away from the motorway. So we went to Barnard Castle, and the town, and by the town, I mean we drove through. I think we also stopped here to have a look at the river and stretch our legs. It was a nice spot Nd there was a board with all manner of creatures visible along the water.

Onto Alston before turning toward Haydon Bridge and onto Once Brewed. So it was really nice to drive through the Peninnes. Although.....as we were driving over the top it started SNOWING!!! It was funny to watch it going from rain to sleet and then to snow. And we were all counting down the temperature on the car dash. It did get to zero....

We got to the place we were staying, the Twice Brewed Inn at about 11am. They were not yet serving food, so we decided to go back to Vindolanda, a Roman settlement, and have a look around before going back. We did stop for a tea first though!

So, Vindolanda, it was really amazing, there were so many exposed buildings/foundations/walls from the Roman times. The town had existed for a couple hundred years and the archaeology went down about 6m or more. Could have been 10m. And at the various depths were different eras of the town. The only thing we had was that we got fairly saturating rain!! There were a lot of plaques out there with much information to explain what you where looking at and I took dozens of photos here!! Mum was very cold, but I was very comfortable, just getting wet!

There was a place within the main walled city of Vindolanda, how we're basically Roman army barracks, where Hadrian 'could' have stayed when we came to visit to tell his troops to build a wall. That was quite interesting. You kind of wonder, how accurate that would be. Obviously someone like Hadrian, well being the Roman Emperor and all, was quite an important person, so would likely have had large living quarters. And would not have bunked with the low soldiers, but would he have shared with, or kicked yt the commanding officer of Vindolanda? I would hope he people who put together the sin, would know a lr of general history, and whether texts say visiting important people took up someone who wasn't the top couple of people there, and had there house for that period. Or whether thy knew he was coming and built something? I'm just not sure the reason behind that, and have never really thought about that previously.

When buying our tickets hey were pushing for people to see that one, and get a double pocket to see the Roman army museum further down the road. I looked at the pamphlet with options and decided I wanted to actually see the FREAKIN WALL. And not just museums about the wall. Not to mention he suggested one for each of the three places I was comparing was about 2 hours, and we only had about 3 total. So we decided to head to Housesteads instead. The car park was at the bottom and we could walk about a mile they said up a hill. Thy said it wasn't particularly difficult, but he oldies among us were cautious. Alison was still cold, and it was most definitely still raining at this point. I was ok to walk, but it was coming down harder and my overpants were packed deep!

We started on the walk and decided to bail as soon as he oldies turnedthe first corner and realised there was quite a bit of uphill. We went back to he office where we found out you could drive most of the way up. We weren't really supposed to but they were sending a few people over there anyway. We did this and our first stop was he museum. It's just a small thing, and not particularly specific to Housesteads, but about the Wall in general. Faj was still quite sick so we left him in the museum and trundled up the hill. Alison d I went through the main gate (only stone entrance gate), and David went around the edge straight to the wall and back again. At the top, partially due to the wind on the ridge, the rain eased and it's quite lovely. Alison and I took a few obligatory pick, had a quick wander and headed back.

Vindolanda was more impressive because the scale was so grand. Housesteads was amazing because part of the external battlement wall, was, The Wall.

We got back to the Twice Brewed and the menfolk went to relax. Mumba and I decided to hit the bar. I got a beer which I can't remember the name of, and mum got s bottle of wine put in the fridge. We played cards for a while, until she convinced me it was time to get the men and eat something. I kept telling her, thy will come down when they are ready, and, thy know where we are. So I went to get them and she gave our cards to someone else, Marcus and Steph. How offered for us to join them, but as our men had just joined us, figured it was a bit rude, especially considering it was Alison's call to brig them down in the first place. We could hear the whole conversation, "the boring ones" etc, "here from Australia", etc, saying wrong things about us. Kinda rather annoying. Turns out mum is a bit of a flirt/hussy when she drinks.

We ate, then faj went to bed and the rest of us joined a very very drunk Marcus, and in hindsight, a really really ready to bail Steph for a game of cards. There was a lot of noise, and a lot of leaning on me from Marcus to figure out how to play. I got a very good out hug from Marcus, who wanted to be friends on Facebook, so I put you name in Steph's phone, but I think she may have vetoed the friendship there....

He was from Halifax, UK, and she was from Sydney, but Asian, probably Chinese I think based on comment from Marcus descent.Read more