Ditch+motorhome=tractor

 Well, well, well....who'd a thought that today would turn out the way it did! Have I grabbed your interest? Keep reading if you fancy finding out.

Last night...OMG...that wind...all night the gusts hit us. MB rocked and rolled, the cover over the bikes flapped constantly, and something annoying was rattling and clattering from outside. Could have been the grill cover over the fridge outlet perhaps? Anyway if we got 4 hours sleep that was good going. By 5.30am we were both sitting up in bed drinking a cup of tea.

As mentioned yesterday our plan was to visit the Hareshaw Linn waterfall near Bellingham. With the wind abating slightly my fears of a woodland walk and falling branches seemed unfounded. So by 8.30am we were on our way.

The Co-ordinates for the waterfall was put into 'Miss very Annoying' sat nav. We followed her direction dutifully until we hit a snag. Suddenly notices appeared about a road closure on the A68 toward Bellingham. Not local to the area and driving on the A696, we didn't think this applied to us. But the road at Otterburn where 'Miss Annoying' wanted us to turn left, was closed. Looking at an actual road map it appeared that if we continued onward we could turn left onto the A68 at Elishaw. "Do a U Turn when possible" 'Miss Annoying' pipped up. The further we travelled toward Elishaw the more incessant she got. "Do a U Turn where possible"...on and on and on! Then she finally realised we were not going to do a U Turn and a new route was laid in, to Elishaw and the A68. But that too was closed. Ian pulled over and checked to see if there was another route through to Bellingham. A lane several miles back could be our way through so we did the U Turn Miss Annoying wanted and eventually came to where we could turn toward West Woodburn. 

Now this is where things went from bad to worse. 

1.  I didn't much care for the width of the road.
2.  Having to open a gate to continue along the lane didn't bode well either.
3.  Very few passing places to be seen.
4.  Meeting a lorry head on couldn't have happened at a worse spot.
   

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Ian did the gentlemanly thing and reversed along the straight road for about 30mtrs. All was well until he came to a bend and then...disaster struck! They say a photo tells a thousand stories well....

 That bloody lorry driver just drove onto the other verge and straight past. He never even stopped to see if we were all right...bastard!

A Farm building was very close by, so Ian went to see if a tractor was handy that could pull us out. It wasn't, but the very nice lady phoned through to her neighbour farmer who was very obliging. "It's not the first time" he smilingly told us on arrival "And I'm sure it won't be the last" When we explained about the road closure, he said "No wonder there is a lot of traffic on this road" "I expect my services will be needed again!"

Took this excerpt from Northumberland traffic reports

The total closure will be the road from Redesmouth, which links Bellingham and Redesmouth to the A68, with the focus of repairing and refurbishing the white bridge over the River Rede.

The normal two mile journey from Redesmouth into Bellingham has been increased to almost 12, as the official detour will take traffic through Ridsdale and West Woodburn to the North Tyne capital.

It's a wonder no damage was done, not even the waste water pipe had been torn off. The advice from the farmer was to return the way we had come. A further 5 miles would have had to be negotiated if we continued on that route so we followed his advice and did the 2 miles back to the main road.

Back through that gate

 

In the end we had to drive nearly to Hexham before we could turn off for Bellingham. It was good then that we found somewhere to park on arrival 'cos the car park was tiny. We managed to tuck ourselves into a corner and then set off to do the walk to Hareshaw Linn waterfall. T'was an easy walk, several steep up hill bits but none I couldn't cope with. And during one of our stops to admire the forest view we saw a Red Squirrel. yea....finally. No photo 'cos it was there one minute and gone the next!

See, money does grow on trees!

 

2 hours later we were back and because it was now late in the afternoon, we headed to Kielder Forest for the night by the reservoir. Cloudy skies and we still won't see the clear dark sky. Never mind, yet another trip back to these parts at a later date but this time when we have done our research.