We are moving on again this week, we are leaving lovely N York Moors, and going on to Haltwhistle Northumbria, near Hadrians Wall.
Monday 5th May – day 191 May Bank holiday
Oh joy, it has been a really beautiful day, today, lovely and sunny, and very warm, the difference it makes to the spirit cannot be underestimated. We had planned a local walk for our final day, and how brill to be able to walk in tee shirts, with no need for jackets. Our camp site was just
north of Lockton and Levisham where there is a railway station, that has been trapped in a time warp. Local enthusiasts and volunteers seem to be supporting the development and maintenance of a steam train service that runs hourly (and daily) between Pickering and Whitby. It is not cheap as a single ticket for one stop 8 minutes along the line cost us £4.80 each, but it was so worth joining in the fun, taking the short train journey to Newton Dale holt in one of 
the old fashioned carriages, reminiscent of our childhoods. We had not enough time to enjoy a little something from the refreshments trolley (I don’t remember those as a girl) before we left to begin our tramp from Newton Dale Holt over the moor back to Levisham. The walk back was glorious, and we dawdled and gazed so long, meandering along and including this little detour to 
Skelton Tower, a derelict look out post (spot the second relic!!), that it was gone 6pm before we returned back to the car at the end of our 5 short miles!
Tuesday 6th May – day 192
Well we have been in Pickering for 13 days, and it has flown by. It took a while to acclimatize to
the more barren landscape after the sheer beauty of the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales, but the North Yorks Moors have certainly grown on us, with its magnificent coastline, and lush green valleys sitting between the vast moor land. We feel quite sad to be leaving our little corner of Marfitt Head Farm, with its noisy birds, and friendly pigs! But we are off for our first stop in 
Northumberland. For the first fortnight we are staying just 4 miles south of Hadrians wall so I am really hoping that we will get to do some decent walking along the route.
After a long but relatively easy journey, we reached Haltwhistle by late afternoon, and were settled and eating supper outside for the first time of our holidays…yippee!
Wednesday 7th May – day 193
Dare I say, a glorious day again, but we need maps (and I need a haircut) if we are going to get the best out of what’s to be seen in this (yet another) truly beautiful area, so off we go to Hexham. We almost have breakfast outside but chicken out at the last minute – fear of cold coffee could blight the day!!! But we do manage a leisurely post coffee sit and speculate before
we head off. We are so pleased with this lovely site at Burnfoot, just outside Haltwhistle, we cannot access digital TV or radio, and the internet is at best intermittent, but the showers are hot and free, and the setting is perfect. The approach to the site passes a steep bank of blue bells, and we are only feet from a wide, fast flowing, and typically northern river. The birds are our constant noisy companions and the sheep can be heard in the field across the river (can you tell we are enjoying this). Almost reluctantly (well almost) we head off for Hexham a lively and atmospheric market town, with its own Abbey. This is a region full of Abbeys in various states of 
ruin, must be the influence of the Celtic Christians, but this one is still standing, simple and square and at ease in its own corner of the town.
After a wander and a haircut for one of us, we were back in time to eat dinner outside hooray, and we don’t need any illumination as Chris’s head is glowing bright enough to give light to the whole site – well he was told to wear his hat….. but would he?…… obviously not!
Thursday 8th May – day 194
Another glorious day, we are getting too used to this, it is going to be hard to go back to cold and rainy, though I’m sure that we must expect it! Having spent so much money yesterday, we need a “free day” so we are leaving the car locked and walking from the caravan. There is a whole walker’s catalogue on sale in the campsite office, but we have our trusty OS map, so off we go, covered in sun cream, 4 bottles of water in the ruchsacks, and Chris wearing his titfer.
It seemed to be a walk of contrasts today. The first few miles we followed the South Tyne cycle track, which had originally been the Alston to Hartwhistle railway line, when the area was buzzing with lead, copper and tin mines. This made the path, flat, straight and manicured (and
sometimes without views,) but we followed it down over Lambley Viaduct to Whitwham, where we left it to go in search of the Pennine Way, which we found easily, though not with any help given by the National Trails folk! Whereas there is an Acorn signpost at almost every corner or route option on the SW Peninsular Path, there were not many clues here. The map told us that we were on a Roman Road at this point along the Pennine Way, and we felt sure it was correct as we walked alongside a very straight wall for the next mile or so, until we reached the top of the moor. We were a little confused to find that the path, (now that we were at the top) was a real quagmire, causing some serious navigational problems as one stile was sitting in the middle of a small lake! We squelched our way across the path and were careful to watch for a left hand turn which would take us back to the road, and on to a lower path. However the path did not materialize and we had to fight our way through old heather and scrub to get to the road, not a popular move with the very many Lapwings who must have been nesting as they were very cross with us, and keen to see us move on!
We continued over squelchy scrubland for the next few miles until we left the Pennine Way to start making our way back to the campsite, and now the scene became much more soft green and pastoral. We stopped for a break by a rippling stream, and headed off for the last stage,
through woodland by the South Tyne River. I think this was the best bit of the walk for me, it was so dingely dellish, and spring flowers were making a grand show, all the favourites were out in abundance, and the sense of green, fresh and new was everywhere. I could have walked a lot longer in this leafy green paradise, but we were soon back on the road and making the final 
approach to the caravan. We had been out for six hours and the feet were just beginning to ask to be released from the boots. We must be getting old as the drink of choice on return was not beer, but …. Tea!!
Friday 9th May – day 195
We are off to explore Hadrians Wall today, and as there is so much roman history to be absorbed it was suggested that we start off at the National Park Information centre, which we did. An hour later I was waking Chris up, as he had got too comfy on the sofa whilst we watched a
promotional film, but fortunately he didn’t snore so we were not disgraced! We thought that we would walk from the centre to Vindalanda an early Roman Fort a couple of miles from the wall, check it out and walk onto Housesteads – a second influential fort and then walk the few miles back to the car along the wall. Sometimes you just have to laugh at your own naivety, we got to Vindalanda……. And stayed until closing time!! The only thing to do once we left was to walk back to the centre – where did the afternoon go!
Only half the site had been excavated, and it was really fascinating to walk round, but the definite highlight was the film in the museum explaining how they had found, and restored a series of wooden tablets (the same size as modern postcards) that held notes, lists and accounts written by the local inhabitants in about 300AD. They included staff inventory lists, and business accounts, though the most startling was a birthday invitation sent by one lady to another. Apparently it is the only surviving evidence of a roman woman’s handwriting in the world! And the reason that it had made it was because of the anaerobic conditions of the earth that they had been buried in – fantastic!
Saturday 10th May – day 196
Breakfast outside again today, as we sat leisurely eating our toast/muesli amongst the trees, under a warm sun, bliss. But we are off to explore the Eden Valley today, so the picnic box must be packed. We take the back roads to Alston, where the “Moody Bakers” - featured in two Radio
4 programmes in the last 2 years – sell their wonderful pies, cakes and bread. We made some purchases obviously, as we needed some treats for our picnic box! And then we had a wander around the rest of Alston, a real charmer of a place, especially as a 2 bedroomed terrace house in need of renovation could be bought for £85,000, Chris got very excited, and for moment there I thought we might be considering a purchase, but no we drove on instead! We continued to drive over the moors, a quite beautiful but barren landscape, down to Eden Vale, which was very green and lush. We drove to Lazenby where we stopped to picnic by the river. How exciting we 
parked in a public car park that doubled up as a recycling centre – which took everything from tin foil to plastic bags, along with all the usuals, FAB, if only we had brought our own growing collection with us!
Having parked up, we picnicked down by the river. It was just lovely, a warm and tranquil piece of rural England. The rippling of the water over the stones, the singing of the Lapwings and Oyster catchers and the rustling of the new spring leaves in the breeze, a comfy shoulder to lean on and the “Moody Baker” pies for lunch what more does one need!!!
After a very leisurely lunch we headed off to take the back roads to Carlisle, trying to discover more of Eden’s delights. It was lovely to drive through, particularly as everything is so fresh and green at the moment, but I think we need to get more info on places to visit, to get the best out of the area. So we headed on to Morrisons to empty our bank account and fill our trolley, which we did quite successfully before heading off back to the van and try another version of squeeze lots of oldly shaped food bags into a small fridge…but I succeeded!!!
Sunday 11th May – day 197
Another cloudless sky, a good day for walking along Hadrian’s Wall (except if you forget the sun cream!!) so we rush (!) to catch the 11.38 AD122 Hadrian’s Wall special bus service, complete with guide, who is on hand to inform all the passengers of the Hadrian delights, and as we were the only passengers between Once Brewed (yes real name, and just down the road there is Twice Brewed something about beer and tea, I think!) and Chester’s Fort, we had the full extent of all his local knowledge.
We got off at the Fort and spent an hour exploring the delights of the bath house, and other such ruins. But we could not spend too long there as we had to get to Housesteads to view the latrines before it closed at 6 pm, and it was an 8 mile walk between the two. Any romantic notions of walking along the wall disappeared quickly, as we ploughed through field after field of meadow, without any hint of a stone structure. And at one point the scenery become so barren and unchanging that walking became a little tedious it has to be acknowledged, especially as the sun was beating down, and even though there was a nice breeze you could feel it crisping up the skin as we had left the sunscreen in the car (oops). It was a long 8 miles to Housesteads the next 
Roman Fort, and we got there at 5.40, just enough time to replenish our water supplies. We were able though to spend time wandering round these ruins, (as they didn’t lock the gates) 
where we saw the best example of the latrines (communal longdrops!). It is hard not to get terribly enthusiastic about this magnificent feat of Roman engineering, as you consider the sheer magnitude of building a wall right across a country to act as a look out and defence, complete with Forts, Milecastles, Turrets and Gates regularly and strategically placed at regular intervals along the wall; and 2000 years later still be able to see understandable evidence of it existence.
We left there just after 6pm with 3 hilly miles still to do. Chris is to be seriously acknowledged at this point as it was clear to see that his knee was troubling him, and we could have caught the bus back, but he was determined to carry on, (my hero!) I am so glad that he persevered, as the
stretch between Once Brewed and Housesteads is the most exciting as the wall is pretty much intact. As it sits on the edge of a hilly precipice, no-one has bothered to take the stone for other wall building, so it is possible o walk along side it for most of the way. There were also some fairly magnificent rocky staircases built into the steep hill side to assist the walker, and all this made 
this stretch infinitely the best bit of the walk, just a pity we were a bit too tired to make the most of it, and we were mostly just relieved when we reached the car at 8pm. By the time we got back to the caravan we had seized up a little, and must have cut quite a picture as we shuffled off for our hot shower. We were not late for bed that night!
Oh joy, it has been a really beautiful day, today, lovely and sunny, and very warm, the difference it makes to the spirit cannot be underestimated. We had planned a local walk for our final day, and how brill to be able to walk in tee shirts, with no need for jackets. Our camp site was just
north of Lockton and Levisham where there is a railway station, that has been trapped in a time warp. Local enthusiasts and volunteers seem to be supporting the development and maintenance of a steam train service that runs hourly (and daily) between Pickering and Whitby. It is not cheap as a single ticket for one stop 8 minutes along the line cost us £4.80 each, but it was so worth joining in the fun, taking the short train journey to Newton Dale holt in one of the old fashioned carriages, reminiscent of our childhoods. We had not enough time to enjoy a little something from the refreshments trolley (I don’t remember those as a girl) before we left to begin our tramp from Newton Dale Holt over the moor back to Levisham. The walk back was glorious, and we dawdled and gazed so long, meandering along and including this little detour to Skelton Tower, a derelict look out post (spot the second relic!!), that it was gone 6pm before we returned back to the car at the end of our 5 short miles!Tuesday 6th May – day 192
Well we have been in Pickering for 13 days, and it has flown by. It took a while to acclimatize to
the more barren landscape after the sheer beauty of the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales, but the North Yorks Moors have certainly grown on us, with its magnificent coastline, and lush green valleys sitting between the vast moor land. We feel quite sad to be leaving our little corner of Marfitt Head Farm, with its noisy birds, and friendly pigs! But we are off for our first stop in Northumberland. For the first fortnight we are staying just 4 miles south of Hadrians wall so I am really hoping that we will get to do some decent walking along the route.After a long but relatively easy journey, we reached Haltwhistle by late afternoon, and were settled and eating supper outside for the first time of our holidays…yippee!
Wednesday 7th May – day 193
Dare I say, a glorious day again, but we need maps (and I need a haircut) if we are going to get the best out of what’s to be seen in this (yet another) truly beautiful area, so off we go to Hexham. We almost have breakfast outside but chicken out at the last minute – fear of cold coffee could blight the day!!! But we do manage a leisurely post coffee sit and speculate before
we head off. We are so pleased with this lovely site at Burnfoot, just outside Haltwhistle, we cannot access digital TV or radio, and the internet is at best intermittent, but the showers are hot and free, and the setting is perfect. The approach to the site passes a steep bank of blue bells, and we are only feet from a wide, fast flowing, and typically northern river. The birds are our constant noisy companions and the sheep can be heard in the field across the river (can you tell we are enjoying this). Almost reluctantly (well almost) we head off for Hexham a lively and atmospheric market town, with its own Abbey. This is a region full of Abbeys in various states of ruin, must be the influence of the Celtic Christians, but this one is still standing, simple and square and at ease in its own corner of the town.After a wander and a haircut for one of us, we were back in time to eat dinner outside hooray, and we don’t need any illumination as Chris’s head is glowing bright enough to give light to the whole site – well he was told to wear his hat….. but would he?…… obviously not!
Thursday 8th May – day 194
Another glorious day, we are getting too used to this, it is going to be hard to go back to cold and rainy, though I’m sure that we must expect it! Having spent so much money yesterday, we need a “free day” so we are leaving the car locked and walking from the caravan. There is a whole walker’s catalogue on sale in the campsite office, but we have our trusty OS map, so off we go, covered in sun cream, 4 bottles of water in the ruchsacks, and Chris wearing his titfer.
It seemed to be a walk of contrasts today. The first few miles we followed the South Tyne cycle track, which had originally been the Alston to Hartwhistle railway line, when the area was buzzing with lead, copper and tin mines. This made the path, flat, straight and manicured (and
sometimes without views,) but we followed it down over Lambley Viaduct to Whitwham, where we left it to go in search of the Pennine Way, which we found easily, though not with any help given by the National Trails folk! Whereas there is an Acorn signpost at almost every corner or route option on the SW Peninsular Path, there were not many clues here. The map told us that we were on a Roman Road at this point along the Pennine Way, and we felt sure it was correct as we walked alongside a very straight wall for the next mile or so, until we reached the top of the moor. We were a little confused to find that the path, (now that we were at the top) was a real quagmire, causing some serious navigational problems as one stile was sitting in the middle of a small lake! We squelched our way across the path and were careful to watch for a left hand turn which would take us back to the road, and on to a lower path. However the path did not materialize and we had to fight our way through old heather and scrub to get to the road, not a popular move with the very many Lapwings who must have been nesting as they were very cross with us, and keen to see us move on!We continued over squelchy scrubland for the next few miles until we left the Pennine Way to start making our way back to the campsite, and now the scene became much more soft green and pastoral. We stopped for a break by a rippling stream, and headed off for the last stage,
through woodland by the South Tyne River. I think this was the best bit of the walk for me, it was so dingely dellish, and spring flowers were making a grand show, all the favourites were out in abundance, and the sense of green, fresh and new was everywhere. I could have walked a lot longer in this leafy green paradise, but we were soon back on the road and making the final approach to the caravan. We had been out for six hours and the feet were just beginning to ask to be released from the boots. We must be getting old as the drink of choice on return was not beer, but …. Tea!!Friday 9th May – day 195
We are off to explore Hadrians Wall today, and as there is so much roman history to be absorbed it was suggested that we start off at the National Park Information centre, which we did. An hour later I was waking Chris up, as he had got too comfy on the sofa whilst we watched a
promotional film, but fortunately he didn’t snore so we were not disgraced! We thought that we would walk from the centre to Vindalanda an early Roman Fort a couple of miles from the wall, check it out and walk onto Housesteads – a second influential fort and then walk the few miles back to the car along the wall. Sometimes you just have to laugh at your own naivety, we got to Vindalanda……. And stayed until closing time!! The only thing to do once we left was to walk back to the centre – where did the afternoon go!Only half the site had been excavated, and it was really fascinating to walk round, but the definite highlight was the film in the museum explaining how they had found, and restored a series of wooden tablets (the same size as modern postcards) that held notes, lists and accounts written by the local inhabitants in about 300AD. They included staff inventory lists, and business accounts, though the most startling was a birthday invitation sent by one lady to another. Apparently it is the only surviving evidence of a roman woman’s handwriting in the world! And the reason that it had made it was because of the anaerobic conditions of the earth that they had been buried in – fantastic!Saturday 10th May – day 196
Breakfast outside again today, as we sat leisurely eating our toast/muesli amongst the trees, under a warm sun, bliss. But we are off to explore the Eden Valley today, so the picnic box must be packed. We take the back roads to Alston, where the “Moody Bakers” - featured in two Radio
4 programmes in the last 2 years – sell their wonderful pies, cakes and bread. We made some purchases obviously, as we needed some treats for our picnic box! And then we had a wander around the rest of Alston, a real charmer of a place, especially as a 2 bedroomed terrace house in need of renovation could be bought for £85,000, Chris got very excited, and for moment there I thought we might be considering a purchase, but no we drove on instead! We continued to drive over the moors, a quite beautiful but barren landscape, down to Eden Vale, which was very green and lush. We drove to Lazenby where we stopped to picnic by the river. How exciting we parked in a public car park that doubled up as a recycling centre – which took everything from tin foil to plastic bags, along with all the usuals, FAB, if only we had brought our own growing collection with us!Having parked up, we picnicked down by the river. It was just lovely, a warm and tranquil piece of rural England. The rippling of the water over the stones, the singing of the Lapwings and Oyster catchers and the rustling of the new spring leaves in the breeze, a comfy shoulder to lean on and the “Moody Baker” pies for lunch what more does one need!!!After a very leisurely lunch we headed off to take the back roads to Carlisle, trying to discover more of Eden’s delights. It was lovely to drive through, particularly as everything is so fresh and green at the moment, but I think we need to get more info on places to visit, to get the best out of the area. So we headed on to Morrisons to empty our bank account and fill our trolley, which we did quite successfully before heading off back to the van and try another version of squeeze lots of oldly shaped food bags into a small fridge…but I succeeded!!!Sunday 11th May – day 197
Another cloudless sky, a good day for walking along Hadrian’s Wall (except if you forget the sun cream!!) so we rush (!) to catch the 11.38 AD122 Hadrian’s Wall special bus service, complete with guide, who is on hand to inform all the passengers of the Hadrian delights, and as we were the only passengers between Once Brewed (yes real name, and just down the road there is Twice Brewed something about beer and tea, I think!) and Chester’s Fort, we had the full extent of all his local knowledge.
We got off at the Fort and spent an hour exploring the delights of the bath house, and other such ruins. But we could not spend too long there as we had to get to Housesteads to view the latrines before it closed at 6 pm, and it was an 8 mile walk between the two. Any romantic notions of walking along the wall disappeared quickly, as we ploughed through field after field of meadow, without any hint of a stone structure. And at one point the scenery become so barren and unchanging that walking became a little tedious it has to be acknowledged, especially as the sun was beating down, and even though there was a nice breeze you could feel it crisping up the skin as we had left the sunscreen in the car (oops). It was a long 8 miles to Housesteads the next Roman Fort, and we got there at 5.40, just enough time to replenish our water supplies. We were able though to spend time wandering round these ruins, (as they didn’t lock the gates) where we saw the best example of the latrines (communal longdrops!). It is hard not to get terribly enthusiastic about this magnificent feat of Roman engineering, as you consider the sheer magnitude of building a wall right across a country to act as a look out and defence, complete with Forts, Milecastles, Turrets and Gates regularly and strategically placed at regular intervals along the wall; and 2000 years later still be able to see understandable evidence of it existence.We left there just after 6pm with 3 hilly miles still to do. Chris is to be seriously acknowledged at this point as it was clear to see that his knee was troubling him, and we could have caught the bus back, but he was determined to carry on, (my hero!) I am so glad that he persevered, as the
stretch between Once Brewed and Housesteads is the most exciting as the wall is pretty much intact. As it sits on the edge of a hilly precipice, no-one has bothered to take the stone for other wall building, so it is possible o walk along side it for most of the way. There were also some fairly magnificent rocky staircases built into the steep hill side to assist the walker, and all this made this stretch infinitely the best bit of the walk, just a pity we were a bit too tired to make the most of it, and we were mostly just relieved when we reached the car at 8pm. By the time we got back to the caravan we had seized up a little, and must have cut quite a picture as we shuffled off for our hot shower. We were not late for bed that night!
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