After our long day yesterday, we decide to have a domestic day, washing, repairing, cleaning etc. Just as well really as the sun has gone in, the weather forecast for the south was 24°C and in the north east 12°C, must be a good day for staying at base. 
And very nice it was too, we finished the evening with a stroll from the entrance to the site where there is a profusion of bluebells and wild garlic, then along the river path, reminding us just what a delightful site we are staying on! 
And very nice it was too, we finished the evening with a stroll from the entrance to the site where there is a profusion of bluebells and wild garlic, then along the river path, reminding us just what a delightful site we are staying on! Tuesday 13th – day 199
The sun is out today, and we are off walking again. We are not going far down the road, as we are
visiting Allen Banks and Staward Gorge near Haltwhistle, now under the watchful eye of the National Truss, which means free car park and toilets, hooray! We pack our picnic lunch and sun 
cream and off we go. It was a walk of two parts really, pre Plankey Bridge and post. The first half was through a Beech wood, all translucent green and glowing with ferns, violets, wild garlic, and trickling brooks all around us. The second half was mostly through pine wood, much darker quieter, and ascending. However both sides of the walk ran mostly alongside the River Allen, and through the gorge. We had hoped to see Red Squirrels or Roe Deer along the way, but they were 
hiding, though we did see Bog Orchids, Bugle, London Bobs and bright pink Red Campion.
At the top of Staward Peer is an ancient stronghold which can only be approached via a high
ridge with very steep sides and the river on one side, I do wonder who would try and attack, when the odds would be so obviously against them!
Our reward, once back near the river was to stop for lunch, but when we found our lovely spot, we discovered that it was in fact 4pm and we had been wandering around for over 4 hours, no wonder we were feeling peckish! We had hoped to spot the odd Kingfisher or Dipper, but the
river was quiet this afternoon, and all that remained was to meander back along the river, through more iridescent green woodland where we did see some beautiful little Heartsease bobbing in the late afternoon sun, and just to finish our walk we had to cross over a rope bridge to gat back onto the right side of the River Allen to reach the car park.
Wednesday 14th – day 200
It has been cool and cloudy today; just as well we have planned a road trip. We are going to do the “North Pennines tour” which starts at Hexham, and drives through some of the wildest and
most remote countryside in Britain. We stopped at Blanchland for a wander; it is a little jewel of a place with soft warm stone cottages all with dark red woodwork - the colour choice of their landlord Lord Crewe. It even had a little Abbey, Arts Gallery, and its own Hat shop – it must get a lot of visitors! We moved on to have our picnic lunch overlooking Derwent reservoir, again a 
popular visitor attraction we think. We parked up just off the road, to get the best view, and when I looked out of the window (too cold to eat out!) there was a delightful purplish haze on the grassy verge, and on closer inspection there were hundreds of little violets laying close to the ground – beautiful. We drove on then to Stanhope, to see an ancient fossilised tree stump, which we did, but it was not photogenic enough to record its presence, and off we went to Middleton on Teesdale. We had high hopes for the interest factor of this old mining town as it was owned by a Quaker run organisation, and there is still evidence of the old temperance infrastructure. It was lost on us though so we hurried on to begin the last part of our tour which was the drive over the moors to drop down into the beautiful Allen Valley. The lack of sunshine prevented it from looking its best, but it was still very pretty, particularly its lead town Allendale, which with its soft warm stone cottages and wide verges looked a little like a larger version of Blanchland.
As we drove the last miles back, (our bottoms now feeling flat and numb) we listened to the news on the radio, a rare treat(!) and are now feeling utterly depressed, there has been a cyclone in Burma killing over 25,000, an earthquake in China, death toll not known but will be huge as well. At home we are told that the house market is struggling, and prices will be down by 10% by
the end of the year, mortgages are harder to get and inflation is rising. From our own perspective although we are still having fun, petrol is costing £1.24 per litre on average, and the prices in the supermarkets going up weekly, and our slush fund is almost gone, so who knows how much longer we can really continue to live like this; so we were completely heartened to see this rare rural scene, as if unaware of all that is raging around him, this old man and his horse were doing again, what they had been doing for years, with no difference in the way they were doing it, it was enough to soothe the spirit, and remind of why we are on this year out!!
Thursday 15th – day 201
The sun is out today, and we are off walking again. We are not going far down the road, as we are
visiting Allen Banks and Staward Gorge near Haltwhistle, now under the watchful eye of the National Truss, which means free car park and toilets, hooray! We pack our picnic lunch and sun cream and off we go. It was a walk of two parts really, pre Plankey Bridge and post. The first half was through a Beech wood, all translucent green and glowing with ferns, violets, wild garlic, and trickling brooks all around us. The second half was mostly through pine wood, much darker quieter, and ascending. However both sides of the walk ran mostly alongside the River Allen, and through the gorge. We had hoped to see Red Squirrels or Roe Deer along the way, but they were hiding, though we did see Bog Orchids, Bugle, London Bobs and bright pink Red Campion.At the top of Staward Peer is an ancient stronghold which can only be approached via a high
ridge with very steep sides and the river on one side, I do wonder who would try and attack, when the odds would be so obviously against them!Our reward, once back near the river was to stop for lunch, but when we found our lovely spot, we discovered that it was in fact 4pm and we had been wandering around for over 4 hours, no wonder we were feeling peckish! We had hoped to spot the odd Kingfisher or Dipper, but the
river was quiet this afternoon, and all that remained was to meander back along the river, through more iridescent green woodland where we did see some beautiful little Heartsease bobbing in the late afternoon sun, and just to finish our walk we had to cross over a rope bridge to gat back onto the right side of the River Allen to reach the car park.Wednesday 14th – day 200
It has been cool and cloudy today; just as well we have planned a road trip. We are going to do the “North Pennines tour” which starts at Hexham, and drives through some of the wildest and
most remote countryside in Britain. We stopped at Blanchland for a wander; it is a little jewel of a place with soft warm stone cottages all with dark red woodwork - the colour choice of their landlord Lord Crewe. It even had a little Abbey, Arts Gallery, and its own Hat shop – it must get a lot of visitors! We moved on to have our picnic lunch overlooking Derwent reservoir, again a popular visitor attraction we think. We parked up just off the road, to get the best view, and when I looked out of the window (too cold to eat out!) there was a delightful purplish haze on the grassy verge, and on closer inspection there were hundreds of little violets laying close to the ground – beautiful. We drove on then to Stanhope, to see an ancient fossilised tree stump, which we did, but it was not photogenic enough to record its presence, and off we went to Middleton on Teesdale. We had high hopes for the interest factor of this old mining town as it was owned by a Quaker run organisation, and there is still evidence of the old temperance infrastructure. It was lost on us though so we hurried on to begin the last part of our tour which was the drive over the moors to drop down into the beautiful Allen Valley. The lack of sunshine prevented it from looking its best, but it was still very pretty, particularly its lead town Allendale, which with its soft warm stone cottages and wide verges looked a little like a larger version of Blanchland.As we drove the last miles back, (our bottoms now feeling flat and numb) we listened to the news on the radio, a rare treat(!) and are now feeling utterly depressed, there has been a cyclone in Burma killing over 25,000, an earthquake in China, death toll not known but will be huge as well. At home we are told that the house market is struggling, and prices will be down by 10% by
the end of the year, mortgages are harder to get and inflation is rising. From our own perspective although we are still having fun, petrol is costing £1.24 per litre on average, and the prices in the supermarkets going up weekly, and our slush fund is almost gone, so who knows how much longer we can really continue to live like this; so we were completely heartened to see this rare rural scene, as if unaware of all that is raging around him, this old man and his horse were doing again, what they had been doing for years, with no difference in the way they were doing it, it was enough to soothe the spirit, and remind of why we are on this year out!!Thursday 15th – day 201
We are going a little further away today, with a trip to Kielder Reservoir, for a walk beside the 
lake and into the surrounding forest. However, things don’t always go to plan and this was no exception. Firstly, a false start as we are not able to find the start of our path, so we spent a good 40mins walking up our chosen route to find a dead end. We retraced our steps back to the start, 
and on to another route, with willing steps and a push into the surrounding forest we found that there is some forestry works in progress and we would have to divert to yet another path. At this point we decided that the gods were not with us so we retraced our steps back to the car and set off for a drive along the road flanking the reservoir. As we moved along we took some detours of our own to take in some of the view points to look out over the reservoir, and as the sun came out to greet the late afternoon we were treated to some fine views over the water. We 
drove further up the road to look back over the length of the reservoir from the castle, but soon realised that the castle as not in a position to view the water so again retracing our route to the water sports centre and here indeed we did get that wanted view. So here we stopped, revelling in the sky, water, afternoon sun and that all important cuppa. After full refreshment we returned home, or at least where our caravan home is at present, (via Haltwhistle to pick up a bottle of tonic water for a serious G & T before supper.)
Friday 16th – day 202
Now here’s a first, we managed to get a good start this morning and parked up at Wall Town Quarry, walked to the heritage centre and waited for the bus (AD122) with 15mins to spare! The AD122 stage coach arrived to take us to Birdoswald, another Roman Fort, where we made the,
by now, accustomed tour of the Roman remains, courtesy of English Heritage. We have built up quite a picture now of the wall, which stood 4mtrs tall, and ran from coast to coast punctuated very regularly by Forts, Milecastles and Look out post (Turrets), all carefully engineered and executed to protect the English bit of their empire. They were a very civilised people, and sadly all their work slowly crumbled as, over time, the stone was used for other buildings.
From Birdoswald we set off for a final walk back along Hadrian’s Wall. The countryside was
much softer today, and more pleasing to meander though. There was a moment of concern though as we passed a large detached house. It had several large holes in the roof (and plant life growing out of it!), and a lot of broken glass in the upstairs windows, however there was a man moving in and out of the house, and tending to his hens in a garden full of scrap. There was much discussion (well I talked a lot) about whether he was meant to be living there, or may be he was a squatter, but one thing was for certain, he was living there, in very uncertain conditions!
We walked back to Wall Town Quarry where the car was parked, but after our picnic we decided to walk a little more of the wall, so we looped our way back to the car via a couple of ups and downs!!
Saturday 17th – day 203
It is raining today, the first poor weather since we arrived, and a good day for visiting Durham! I suspect it is because of lack of spending power just now, but we are finding that there is so much
more to be enjoyed in the country than the town, (and fewer Wine bars, Coffee Houses and posh eateries to pass by!!), but we enjoyed our wander round the old city, with its bridges and cobbled streets. We made the usual visit to the Cathedral, even though by now Chris’s eyes start to glaze 
over at the thought of another ecclesiastical tour!! There was a large chapel (called Galilee Chapel) at the back dedicated to St Bede, which will remain in the memory as a little different, with a lovely wooden sculpture of the bread ad wine. Whilst at the front there was a shrine to St Cuthbert (we look forward to learning much more about these two when we visit Lindisfarne)
The second thing that will remain in the memory unfortunately, is of a large group of women, of varying shapes, sizes and ages, mostly skimpily clad, all sporting fluffy black and pink antennae bands, squealy voices and clicky high heels, all definitely off for a good night out!
Sunday 18th – day 204
lake and into the surrounding forest. However, things don’t always go to plan and this was no exception. Firstly, a false start as we are not able to find the start of our path, so we spent a good 40mins walking up our chosen route to find a dead end. We retraced our steps back to the start, and on to another route, with willing steps and a push into the surrounding forest we found that there is some forestry works in progress and we would have to divert to yet another path. At this point we decided that the gods were not with us so we retraced our steps back to the car and set off for a drive along the road flanking the reservoir. As we moved along we took some detours of our own to take in some of the view points to look out over the reservoir, and as the sun came out to greet the late afternoon we were treated to some fine views over the water. We drove further up the road to look back over the length of the reservoir from the castle, but soon realised that the castle as not in a position to view the water so again retracing our route to the water sports centre and here indeed we did get that wanted view. So here we stopped, revelling in the sky, water, afternoon sun and that all important cuppa. After full refreshment we returned home, or at least where our caravan home is at present, (via Haltwhistle to pick up a bottle of tonic water for a serious G & T before supper.)Friday 16th – day 202
Now here’s a first, we managed to get a good start this morning and parked up at Wall Town Quarry, walked to the heritage centre and waited for the bus (AD122) with 15mins to spare! The AD122 stage coach arrived to take us to Birdoswald, another Roman Fort, where we made the,
by now, accustomed tour of the Roman remains, courtesy of English Heritage. We have built up quite a picture now of the wall, which stood 4mtrs tall, and ran from coast to coast punctuated very regularly by Forts, Milecastles and Look out post (Turrets), all carefully engineered and executed to protect the English bit of their empire. They were a very civilised people, and sadly all their work slowly crumbled as, over time, the stone was used for other buildings.From Birdoswald we set off for a final walk back along Hadrian’s Wall. The countryside was
much softer today, and more pleasing to meander though. There was a moment of concern though as we passed a large detached house. It had several large holes in the roof (and plant life growing out of it!), and a lot of broken glass in the upstairs windows, however there was a man moving in and out of the house, and tending to his hens in a garden full of scrap. There was much discussion (well I talked a lot) about whether he was meant to be living there, or may be he was a squatter, but one thing was for certain, he was living there, in very uncertain conditions!We walked back to Wall Town Quarry where the car was parked, but after our picnic we decided to walk a little more of the wall, so we looped our way back to the car via a couple of ups and downs!!Saturday 17th – day 203
It is raining today, the first poor weather since we arrived, and a good day for visiting Durham! I suspect it is because of lack of spending power just now, but we are finding that there is so much
more to be enjoyed in the country than the town, (and fewer Wine bars, Coffee Houses and posh eateries to pass by!!), but we enjoyed our wander round the old city, with its bridges and cobbled streets. We made the usual visit to the Cathedral, even though by now Chris’s eyes start to glaze over at the thought of another ecclesiastical tour!! There was a large chapel (called Galilee Chapel) at the back dedicated to St Bede, which will remain in the memory as a little different, with a lovely wooden sculpture of the bread ad wine. Whilst at the front there was a shrine to St Cuthbert (we look forward to learning much more about these two when we visit Lindisfarne)The second thing that will remain in the memory unfortunately, is of a large group of women, of varying shapes, sizes and ages, mostly skimpily clad, all sporting fluffy black and pink antennae bands, squealy voices and clicky high heels, all definitely off for a good night out!Sunday 18th – day 204
Today is our last day in Haltwhistle, and it is a sign of the times, that we were going to visit Newcastle, but are now trying to conserve petrol and coffee money, so opt for another local walk in this green and blue haven. It is cool, but the sun is out, so we pack the rucksacks and set off for a circular walk following the rivers and burns. We nearly came unstuck early on as we had to cross a field full of cows, their calves….. and the Big Daddy! I was tempted to find another field, but Chris puffed out his chest, became the other Big Daddy, and off we marched (round the edges!) and I stuck very close to his shoulder. Our “reward” for making it to the other side, was 
an almost vertical hike through a wood completely covered by Wild Garlic, what a smell!
Fortunately we were not climbing for long, before we were back in the fields and rambling amongst the sheep, lapwings, curlews and rabbits ……………….. and rabbits ………………… and more rabbits. There were thousands of these little veg patch wreckers, however cute they look with their little white bottoms bobbing away from us, it’s a bit scary to think of the damage they can all do.
Our route took us up into the moor a little, though still near the river, and we were delighted to see this waterfall. It was quite noisy, but a weird thing happened, as we tipped over the top of the hillock the sound stopped immediately and completely. We were so surprised we retraced several steps and the sound of running water rushed back at us – amazing how the sound could be so blocked.
We returned back to the campsite along the South Tyne River, trying a bit of bird spotting, but nothing caught our eye that we could recognize, and then we were back at the van for our last evening in dingily dell.
an almost vertical hike through a wood completely covered by Wild Garlic, what a smell!Fortunately we were not climbing for long, before we were back in the fields and rambling amongst the sheep, lapwings, curlews and rabbits ……………….. and rabbits ………………… and more rabbits. There were thousands of these little veg patch wreckers, however cute they look with their little white bottoms bobbing away from us, it’s a bit scary to think of the damage they can all do.
Our route took us up into the moor a little, though still near the river, and we were delighted to see this waterfall. It was quite noisy, but a weird thing happened, as we tipped over the top of the hillock the sound stopped immediately and completely. We were so surprised we retraced several steps and the sound of running water rushed back at us – amazing how the sound could be so blocked.We returned back to the campsite along the South Tyne River, trying a bit of bird spotting, but nothing caught our eye that we could recognize, and then we were back at the van for our last evening in dingily dell.
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