We were expecting rain for our first day in Hexham, so were pleasantly surprised to see there was none. Sharing the site with us were 4 other caravans and around 7 tents, I don’t know if it is something we said/did, but every one of them packed up and left this morning! Only one new caravan arrived, and even they just hurriedly put the legs down and the wheel clamp on and promptly left. We ar
e now a little paranoid! Anyway, we carried on our day by first taking the dogs for a walk from the site up to the well preserved remains of Hadrian’s Wall we walked along the wall for a while before heading back to the van, it’s amazing to think that they built this huge wall, 80 miles long and 15ft high in places without a single JCB or dumper truck!.
We popped into Hexham in Tonks and on the way bac
k we stopped to have a look at an English Heritage managed turret which was signposted from the road, but after getting out of the car we were disappointed to find that no dogs were allowed, so we jumped back in the car and headed for Chesters. Chesters is a roman fort which sat along the course of the wall just where it crosses the River North Tyne, it is managed by English Heritage and is a well excavated site that combined with the information boards and museum leaves little to the imagination. A garrison, officers quarters, commanders house, roman baths and turrets are all clearly visibly and well explained on the site. We spent a good amount of time exploring the site and the museum, and despite the fact that it started raining half way through we still stopped for an ice cream from the on-site café!
It was a bit rainy the next day, but it seemed to clear up later in the morning so we decided to head into Newcastle for a look around. It was only a half hour drive into the city, and we quickly found a car park by the Town Moor, an area of parkland bigger than Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath put together. We took the dogs here first, and had a little walk on the tarmac paths while trying to dodge the walkers, cyclists and cow pats (Freemen of the town are allowed to graze cattle on it). We then headed towards the city centre through Leazes Park, the oldest park in the town established in 1873, which has recently had a £3.7m refurbishment and boasts a lake, a maze
, bandstand, sports facilities and lots of other park-type-stuff. We had our lunch sat on a bench by the lake before heading through the park to St James’ Park, the home of Newcastle United FC, and Mofasa’s stomping ground (we saw a few dodgy characters there, so that explains it!) we walked around the ground before heading off into Chinatown with its Chinese arch and many restaurants. While we were here Linda popped into the Chinese supermarket and got some bits and bobs. We then followed the historic town walls past the catholic cathedral of St Mary and made our way to the river. It was around here that disaster struck. We found a fountain where the dogs could have a drink, and while leaning over to encourage Smudge to have a drink Phil heard a ‘plop’ - the Ipaq pocket PC had dropped into the water. It was quickly recovered, was still on, and appeared to be ok. Soon afterwards though, it switched itself off maybe never to come on again. It was a sad day indeed. Still, we carried on past the railway station and on to the Tyne Bridge, built in 1928 and designed by the same people who later designed the Forth Road Bridge, the Tyne Bridge has become a defining symbol of Tyneside. While we were there hundreds of seagulls were nesting on the bridge, and as we peered over we could see numerous chicks in the nests, the downside of this of course is the layer of white bird poo that the bridge is steadily being coated in. After crossing the bridge we walked past The 
Sage, a theatre and events venue opened in 2004, it is a highly unusual stainless steel and curved glass building that looks a bit like a slug, but is very impressive nonetheless. Next up was the Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge which was opened in September 2001. We were lucky enough to time it perfectly as the bridge was raising to let two Royal Navy patrol boats from HMS Calliope pass through. While we watched the bridge slowly rise and fall Phil asked one of the gate operators how often it opens, he said it’s only once a day unless there is a special occasion like the boat race on (it actually had to be raised twice this time as of the two boats that had gone through one needed to come back and was too slow the first time – this never happens according to the man Phil was talking to so we were very lucky to see it!). Linda was so excited by the sight of the bridge raising that she threw her phone on the floor, luckily it wasn’t as disastrous as the Ipaq incident and the phone was just scuffed. Once the bridge was down we realised we didn’t have much time to get back to the car park, so we hot footed it back past the castle keep, the oldest structure in the city dating back to the 11th century, and back to Tonks, 6.5 miles walked and we were pretty tired..
Rain, rain, rain. It rained all morning so we stayed in the van until around 2:00 when the rain had become lighter, so we decided to head into Hexham. We parked up in Tyne Green Country Park on the outsk
irts of the town next to Hexham Bridge, the bridge was built in 1793, following two failed attempts in 1770 and 1780 to build bridges on the site both of which only lasted a year before collapsing! The present stone arch bridge has 9 spans and has faired much better than its predecessors. We walked through the country park between the river and the golf course before crossing the railway line and heading into the town. We soon stumbled on Hexham House which is now the home of the local council, but the gardens at the back of the house are open to the public. We had a stroll around the garden and over the stream until we found ourselves in the Abbey grounds, which we crossed over to the 11th century Abbey. We then headed into the town as we needed a Post Office, Phil had become an uncle again for the 4th time on Monday 31st, and his new niece Sophie needed a present which we posted off.
Rain, rain, sideways rain is what we woke up to the next day, so once again we hibernated in the van until the afternoon. While we moped about I got the Ipaq out of intensive care and gave it a try to see if there was any life. None. It was a very sad moment, and through the tears we decided to prepare for the funeral. I fully assembled the stricken body so that it would look nice for the coffin, and gave its power button one last prod. That’s when the miracle happened, the screen flickered, it blinked, and Ipaq went into boot-up mode! Before long Windows was up and running and the GPS was telling me where we were! Jubilation! Celebration! Joy! The brave little soldier had been for a swim, died, and come back to life, yippee! I put it in our tin of dry rice for the day to make sure it was completely dry.
Anyway, in
the afternoon we headed down the road to the Twice Brewed Inn, where we had soup (cream of carrot and ginger – yum yum!) for lunch and a real ale each before heading up the hill and on to Hadrian’s Wall where we walked for about a mile along the wall to a trig point before about-turning and heading back to Tonks. We dr
ove a couple of miles further where we stopped at Cawfields to have a look at one of the milecastles on the wall, a little walk past a former quarry which is now full of water took us to the wall and the milecastle ruin, it was in a field full of very nosey cows, so after a quick look around we made a sharp exit and headed home. Back at the van we had an “Ipaq is alive” party before bed!
We headed out to Bellingham up the road today and did a walk up Hareshaw Lynn
which is a bea
utiful walk up to a waterfall. On the walk we saw a few nice footbridges, lots of waterfalls, a red squirrel, and a dumper truck moving huge rocks to shore up the river banks. Once back at the car we had our picnic before heading to the farm shop up the road, chatted to the farmer about how hard farming is before we saw the sheep being moved down the road and the pigs in the field opposite. We then headed over to Wark forest and parked up in a small village called Stonehaugh, where we did a 1.5 mile walk which was waymarked by the Forestry Commission, it was a lovely forest walk, very peaceful and at the start we saw some deer having a drink in the river.
We have now moved to Highburn House, a private site in Wooler, and following a nice welcome from the owner and we followed him in his car up to the pitch which was a great spot at the top of the site with a good view.
e now a little paranoid! Anyway, we carried on our day by first taking the dogs for a walk from the site up to the well preserved remains of Hadrian’s Wall we walked along the wall for a while before heading back to the van, it’s amazing to think that they built this huge wall, 80 miles long and 15ft high in places without a single JCB or dumper truck!.We popped into Hexham in Tonks and on the way bac
k we stopped to have a look at an English Heritage managed turret which was signposted from the road, but after getting out of the car we were disappointed to find that no dogs were allowed, so we jumped back in the car and headed for Chesters. Chesters is a roman fort which sat along the course of the wall just where it crosses the River North Tyne, it is managed by English Heritage and is a well excavated site that combined with the information boards and museum leaves little to the imagination. A garrison, officers quarters, commanders house, roman baths and turrets are all clearly visibly and well explained on the site. We spent a good amount of time exploring the site and the museum, and despite the fact that it started raining half way through we still stopped for an ice cream from the on-site café!It was a bit rainy the next day, but it seemed to clear up later in the morning so we decided to head into Newcastle for a look around. It was only a half hour drive into the city, and we quickly found a car park by the Town Moor, an area of parkland bigger than Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath put together. We took the dogs here first, and had a little walk on the tarmac paths while trying to dodge the walkers, cyclists and cow pats (Freemen of the town are allowed to graze cattle on it). We then headed towards the city centre through Leazes Park, the oldest park in the town established in 1873, which has recently had a £3.7m refurbishment and boasts a lake, a maze
, bandstand, sports facilities and lots of other park-type-stuff. We had our lunch sat on a bench by the lake before heading through the park to St James’ Park, the home of Newcastle United FC, and Mofasa’s stomping ground (we saw a few dodgy characters there, so that explains it!) we walked around the ground before heading off into Chinatown with its Chinese arch and many restaurants. While we were here Linda popped into the Chinese supermarket and got some bits and bobs. We then followed the historic town walls past the catholic cathedral of St Mary and made our way to the river. It was around here that disaster struck. We found a fountain where the dogs could have a drink, and while leaning over to encourage Smudge to have a drink Phil heard a ‘plop’ - the Ipaq pocket PC had dropped into the water. It was quickly recovered, was still on, and appeared to be ok. Soon afterwards though, it switched itself off maybe never to come on again. It was a sad day indeed. Still, we carried on past the railway station and on to the Tyne Bridge, built in 1928 and designed by the same people who later designed the Forth Road Bridge, the Tyne Bridge has become a defining symbol of Tyneside. While we were there hundreds of seagulls were nesting on the bridge, and as we peered over we could see numerous chicks in the nests, the downside of this of course is the layer of white bird poo that the bridge is steadily being coated in. After crossing the bridge we walked past The 
Sage, a theatre and events venue opened in 2004, it is a highly unusual stainless steel and curved glass building that looks a bit like a slug, but is very impressive nonetheless. Next up was the Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge which was opened in September 2001. We were lucky enough to time it perfectly as the bridge was raising to let two Royal Navy patrol boats from HMS Calliope pass through. While we watched the bridge slowly rise and fall Phil asked one of the gate operators how often it opens, he said it’s only once a day unless there is a special occasion like the boat race on (it actually had to be raised twice this time as of the two boats that had gone through one needed to come back and was too slow the first time – this never happens according to the man Phil was talking to so we were very lucky to see it!). Linda was so excited by the sight of the bridge raising that she threw her phone on the floor, luckily it wasn’t as disastrous as the Ipaq incident and the phone was just scuffed. Once the bridge was down we realised we didn’t have much time to get back to the car park, so we hot footed it back past the castle keep, the oldest structure in the city dating back to the 11th century, and back to Tonks, 6.5 miles walked and we were pretty tired..
Rain, rain, rain. It rained all morning so we stayed in the van until around 2:00 when the rain had become lighter, so we decided to head into Hexham. We parked up in Tyne Green Country Park on the outsk
irts of the town next to Hexham Bridge, the bridge was built in 1793, following two failed attempts in 1770 and 1780 to build bridges on the site both of which only lasted a year before collapsing! The present stone arch bridge has 9 spans and has faired much better than its predecessors. We walked through the country park between the river and the golf course before crossing the railway line and heading into the town. We soon stumbled on Hexham House which is now the home of the local council, but the gardens at the back of the house are open to the public. We had a stroll around the garden and over the stream until we found ourselves in the Abbey grounds, which we crossed over to the 11th century Abbey. We then headed into the town as we needed a Post Office, Phil had become an uncle again for the 4th time on Monday 31st, and his new niece Sophie needed a present which we posted off.Rain, rain, sideways rain is what we woke up to the next day, so once again we hibernated in the van until the afternoon. While we moped about I got the Ipaq out of intensive care and gave it a try to see if there was any life. None. It was a very sad moment, and through the tears we decided to prepare for the funeral. I fully assembled the stricken body so that it would look nice for the coffin, and gave its power button one last prod. That’s when the miracle happened, the screen flickered, it blinked, and Ipaq went into boot-up mode! Before long Windows was up and running and the GPS was telling me where we were! Jubilation! Celebration! Joy! The brave little soldier had been for a swim, died, and come back to life, yippee! I put it in our tin of dry rice for the day to make sure it was completely dry.
Anyway, in
the afternoon we headed down the road to the Twice Brewed Inn, where we had soup (cream of carrot and ginger – yum yum!) for lunch and a real ale each before heading up the hill and on to Hadrian’s Wall where we walked for about a mile along the wall to a trig point before about-turning and heading back to Tonks. We dr
ove a couple of miles further where we stopped at Cawfields to have a look at one of the milecastles on the wall, a little walk past a former quarry which is now full of water took us to the wall and the milecastle ruin, it was in a field full of very nosey cows, so after a quick look around we made a sharp exit and headed home. Back at the van we had an “Ipaq is alive” party before bed!We headed out to Bellingham up the road today and did a walk up Hareshaw Lynn
which is a bea
utiful walk up to a waterfall. On the walk we saw a few nice footbridges, lots of waterfalls, a red squirrel, and a dumper truck moving huge rocks to shore up the river banks. Once back at the car we had our picnic before heading to the farm shop up the road, chatted to the farmer about how hard farming is before we saw the sheep being moved down the road and the pigs in the field opposite. We then headed over to Wark forest and parked up in a small village called Stonehaugh, where we did a 1.5 mile walk which was waymarked by the Forestry Commission, it was a lovely forest walk, very peaceful and at the start we saw some deer having a drink in the river.We have now moved to Highburn House, a private site in Wooler, and following a nice welcome from the owner and we followed him in his car up to the pitch which was a great spot at the top of the site with a good view.
Lovely to see your pics of my beloved northeast but not to hear about all this rain! My Dad was born in Bishop Aukland and my impression was the same as yours. Having a few days in Newcastle with college mates beginning of July so I hope the rain has gone by then.
ReplyDeleteThe Owens are well and Olivia is a delightful individual and can't wait to meet you.
Love, Helen's Mum