Hadrian's wall at last.

 The worry of leaving and getting stuck on that hill kept me from a good nights sleep. Ian, ever the optimist, had no qualms though and slept like a baby. Voicing my concerns over breakfast, he said, "If I keep well over to the left, we should be okay." So with some trepidation, I walked up that hill and waited for the inevitable to happen. Well...he made it part way, why he stopped I have no idea, but stop he did! Went to pull away again but the offside front wheel lost all grip on the loose gravel. Rolling back he tried again and this time foot hard down on the throttle, and he was almost at the top when the wheel spun again throwing up a vast amount of dust and grit. Gosh, there was a strong smell of burning rubber, I reckon the tyre will be bald if we keep stopping on gravelly hills. MB made it though, and Ian was right, MB's chassis never did come in contact with the tarmac. I somehow don't think, this site will be used again, although the river setting was ever so quiet and peaceful and the facilities so very clean.

 We found more of Hadrian's Wall....yea....at last. It was a tiny section seen from across the Tyne river when we visited the Chester Fort, another of the English Heritage sites and I must just say, out of all the Roman ruins seen over the last day or two, this was by far the most detailed and intact.

The short section of wall

Two hours flew by, I enjoyed this visit more than the others only because of the information boards along the way which was informative and had detailed pictures. The stables interested me. Tiny was not the word. The horses must have been considerably smaller in them days, just check out the entrance, Three horses and three cavalry men all slept in the one stable. The men had to. you see, the cost of the horse was too great to allow it to be stolen

 

Bath House top two and bottom left and latrine bottom right

Commanding Officers quarters with treasury house, bottom left.

C

All these artefacts were found by John Clayton in the Victorian era

 Before we knew it, the morning had gone so a hasty sandwich for lunch, and we headed for the Temple of Mithras. On route and on a long downhill section, more of the wall was seen. How do we get to it, we asked ourselves, and where do we park?. A small lay-by was seen about a mile from the ruin, but with two vehicles already parked, there was no room for us. 

Seen from the road

 

So we proceeded to the temple. This did have a car park but was a Pay and Display run by the Northampton National Parks so even though the temple was English Heritage, we still had to pay. One pound for one hour, thats all we put in the machine and hoped that would be long enough to walk there and back. It was because 10 minutes after starting the walk, the Temple came into view.

Temple of Mithras.

Hmm, not quite what we expected, a little disappointed if truth be known. Still, we had to go see. I was still itching to see if we could walk to that bit of wall seen from the road. It was nearly 2 miles from this car park, so once back at MB, we decided to drive back to the lay-by and see if it was free.

We were in luck as only one car parked. So Jessie hat on because the sun was low, (nothing worse than squinting against the glare) anti midge spray liberally applied to bare skin, we set off in a jaunty mood. 

There was a pile of huge boulders along the wall route. Absolutely no idea why they were there. Some looked to have been chiselled into shapes, were these the unwanted stone when the Romans built the wall? Anyway, it was something to discuss as we walked toward the stretch of wall seen from the road.

We came across this section of wall first, and way into the distance was Black Carts Turret.

Clambering over a couple of stiles it lay before us, in a field full of young heifers and bullocks, that section of wall seen from MB from the road.

 

 

Black Carts Turret

Walking back took much longer, all my fault because I would keep stopping to take wildlife photos. Ian has the patience of a saint as far as that is concerned. We did eventually spy MB in the distance, parked all alone in that lay-by.

Thought this made a pretty picture

 And wildlife today,

Oyster Catchers

Yellow Hammer

Large Blue

Meadow Pipit

Kestrel