Exploring England's Roman past

Every two weeks, usually on a Sunday, it's time for laundry.
We chose a place in Whitby, because we wanted to go there again anyway to check out the Captain Cook Museum.

When we got there, an elderly lady was in the shop, trying to get little coffee machine to work. Which didn't happen. So, after throwing in her dirty clothes, my human offered to make her a cup of coffee.

Maureen gladly accepted and so they sat down and had a cuppa, while waiting for their laundry. 

Turns out, Maureen is an 80-year old Australian lady, on holiday with her husband, tracing back his roots. He is the great, great, great-, and a few more, -son of a convict who was sent to Australia after steeling a horse. 

She was such a lovely lady and it was so nice talking to her, we gave her a lift back to her hotel while our clothes were still tumbling around in the dryer.

Once we were done as well, my human took off to check out the Whitby Abbey. This ruin inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula, which he did here in this little city.

As for the Captain Cook museum, another very pleasant surprise. The lady at the entrance took time to explain a lot about the house and Cook's voyages. Did you know, that his maps are still used today? Many ships still carry them in case the modern technology fails them. His maps of New Zealand, for example, are off by less than half a kilometer!

Map before Cook

Map after Cook

Good view from up there, Carmelo?

You know the expression "three square meals a day"? That goes back to Cook, too. A sailor's plate was square and Cook was the first one to feed them three meals a day. On other ships they were fed only once a day!

The Whale Bone Arch

After wandering around town for a while, we were on our way to Newcastle upon Tyne. Parked right alongside the river on a large car park, we enjoyed a drink and a nice sunset.

After a quiet night, my human brought her bike to a repair shop, conveniently located right next to the car park. It's been making a very annoying creaking sound for a while. Turns out, the part that holds the pedals together, whatever you call it, was damaged and made that sound. So the mechanic replaced that and only charged us for the part, not for the labor. I love this country, people are so friendly!

In the meantime my human had a look around the city, checking out the Millennium Museum, a covered market (with everything to buy from sausage rolls to what looked like wedding dresses for babies) and a church.

The first turbine powered ship in the worlds. Hence the name.

I like this person!

Newcastle is a city of many bridges. Not sure if you really need all of them, but they are quite interesting because of the variety in age, material, height and how they function.

How many bridges do you count?

To get some more information about Hadrian's Wall, we drove to Hexham, a small town somewhat inland from Newcastle. The lady in the information center had not talked to anyone all day, it seemed, so she was very happy to assist us.

Then we made use again of this great English custom of using a pub's car park to spend the night, in exchange for having a couple of drinks there. Add to it that England was playing Germany that night, throw in a few talkative locals, a couple of dogs, Milo and Rocket, and you have a great night indeed.

Not surprising anyone, the next morning started with a lot of rain. Nevertheless, we drove a few kilometers to get to a spot where I could stay for a few hours and my human could easily access the trail.

Hadrian's Wall was built by the order of the Emperor Hadrian in AD122. It stretched about 120km from coast to coast, marking the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire. Nowadays you find bits and pieces of the wall and buildings along the trail, some faint, some very well preserved. It's quite intriguing, that these stones have been there for almost 2000 years.

The first bit of wall you get to see coming from the East

A bit further down the road lies Alnwick. The "l" and the "w" are silent for some reason, so it's Anick. The towns claim to fame is a very picturesque castle which has been used many times as a film location. Most will know it as Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter movies. It also played host to some transformers and Robin Hood, besides others.

                                                                Every castle needs a dragon, right?

There is a tunnel connecting the kitchen with the dining hall, which are way apart for unknown reasons. It is called the Whistling Tunnel, because the Duke in residence at the time when the tunnel was built had the servants whistle while going through it. Because if you whistle, you can't eat at the same time!

To this day the castle is the winter residence of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, the Percy family. The castle walls have never been breached and most likely never will be.

Dunsborough Castle (ruins), brief stopover for a beach walk

We then had a look at Holy Island, a speck of land you can reach over a road only on low tide. There are some castle ruins and really not much else. But it was a strange feeling driving across what is water half the time.

Our last stop before the border to Scotland was Berwick upon Tweet. This is England's most northern town. It's soccer team plays in the Scottish league and it has been handed over from the English to the Scots and back no less than 14!!! times in a 250-year period.

They love their bridges

This was the highest and longest bridge in the world when they finished building it in 1847, with 27 arches

This was our last stop in England for now. We have spent a month here and it was really quite surprising how lovely, friendly and welcoming the people here were. We will be back!

To finish off this last England post, here are some observations we made over the past month:

1. There is so much road kill! I know, I mentioned this before, but it really is a dominant landscape feature.

2. Make up must be cheap in this country, otherwise all these young women wouldn't use it so very heavily, surely!

3. There is lots and lots of colorful hair. Blue, red, green, rainbow. And not just women, either. Neither only young people.

4. Although the English drive on the left, they mainly walk on the right. Curious.