The Wall continued

Today was my second day on the wall.

The plan was to get on the AD122 bus at 9:00am at the central station and get off at the Roman Army Museum, have a look around and then catch a bus to Birdoswald fort before getting the bus back to the hostel.

I hadn't really been planning to go to the Roman Army Museum a week ago, but the bus from Newcastle doesn't go all the way through to Birdoswald, so I would have to get off at the Roman Army Museum and the next bus wasn't for an hour and a half, so I thought I might as well go into the museum and have a look around.

This morning I had to check out of my room again and check back into a different room. All in all, I will have been in 4 different rooms by the time I leave Newcastle, but I am just happy to have a roof over my head. To check out of my room I had to repack my suitcase (once again) and take all my stuff downstairs to reception and store it for the day and then check back in when I got back from the Wall in the afternoon.

So, I was up rather early this morning to make sure everything was organised and ready to go. I had been planning to have everything packed the night before so I could just head straight downstairs when I was ready. Unfortunately that wasn't to be.

During my rest day yesterday I had decided to get some washing done as I was getting rather desperate. There was a large group of people doing their washing for most of the day, so I didn't get to the washing machine until quite late in the afternoon. I got all my stuff washed without any problems, but then I turned to the dryer. I had been forewarned that the dryer can be a bit slow and sometimes it would take 2 cycles to get heavy things dry, so I had purchased 2 tokens just in case. I put everything into the dryer and turned it on. There are 4 settings on the dryer, but I wouldn't have a clue what they are. The different settings are marked by strange symbols and there is no explanation as to what they mean (I think the dryer is from the 80's at least). I just hoped that everything would get done ok. I came back at the end of the cycle to find that everything was still pretty wet, so I put another token in and started it again. I went back after the last cycle to discover that everything..... was still wet! Aaaaarrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At this point it was rather late and I was wanting to get to bed so I would be able to get up early in the morning. I couldn't pack my bag because most of my clothes were still wet, I was out of tokens and I didn't know that putting it through the dryer again was really going to do any good. So, I lugged all of my wet clothes back to my room (luckily there were only 2 of us in an 8 bed room), got my travel clothesline out and hung my wet clothes up all over the room. The window was cracked open and I just hoped that it would all dry by the morning.

This first thing I did when I got up was check to see if everything was dry, and of course it wasn't. So I headed downstairs to reception - in my pj's - and got some more tokens and chucked my clothes back into the dryer again. In between I had to have a shower and get all my stuff together (without waking my room mate). I checked my clothes once the dryer had finished and they still weren't dry so I had to put them through again.

I was starting to get worried as time was slipping away and if I missed the bus at 9:00am, there wasn't another one until 11:00 and my whole day would be stuffed up.

I decided to finish packing my bags, even without half of my clothes, and would just put my clothes into a bag and store them with everything else. I took my luggage downstairs and checked out and then I raced back upstairs to find that the dryer had finished its last cycle. The clothes weren't completely dry (particularly the jeans), but it had to do, so I stuffed everything into a bag and shoved it into the storage area with the rest of my bags and raced out the door. I'd deal with all of that when I got back later on.

The train station is only about a 2 minute walk from my hostel, but I needed to find an atm otherwise I would not be getting on the bus. I gave myself plenty of time just in case. I'm glad I did, because do you think I could find a frigging atm?! Of course not. I managed to find one after about 10 mins, but it had run out of cash, so I had to find another one. I finally found an atm and headed down to the bus stop. It was about 8:50 at this point, but the bus had been 15 mins late on my first day on the wall, so I wasn't rushing. I turned the corner.... and my bus was already there and people were loading onto the bus! I could not believe it, so I had to run and luckily caught the bus.

It is a 2 hour drive to the Roman Army Museum, but we had a guide on the bus, so it made the time more interesting. The AD122 bus is good in the respect that it follows the course of Hadrian's Wall as much as possible, so we avoid the motorways and get to see some amazing scenery.

We finally arrived at the Roman Army Museum and I headed inside to have a look around. I had an hour and a half to fill in, so I was hoping it was pretty extensive. I was disappointed. The museum was very amateurish. The information was basic, the displays were childish and the museum was really quite small. I had a quick look around, but it only took me 10mins. I didn't feel like sitting around for over an hour, and I remembered that our tour guide had mentioned a place near to the museum called Walltown Crag. So, I found out how far away it was and decided to walk there.

Walltown Crag is a large, rocky hill overlooking the landscape with a section of Hadrian's Wall right on the very edge. It was only 10 mins from the museum and was a pleasant (if not overly flat) walk. The view from the top was amazing. It was a bright, clear day today, so I could see for miles. It was very peaceful up on top of the crag. There were only 4 of us up there, and no one was inclined to talk. We all just found a spot on the grass to sit and look out over the countryside.

I couldn't stay all day, so I had to head back to the museum so I could catch the bus to Birdoswald.

Birdoswald fort was about a 30min ride from the Roman Army Museum, and is one of the most westerly forts that still stands. I was disappointed by Birdoswald.

A lot of excavation has taken place over the years, but much of it has been back filled, so there is nothing to see. A lot of what you can see isn't labelled, which makes it hard to identify what you are looking at. Another problem is that buildings have been constructed over much of the site (including the shop and museum!) and they haven't been pulled down to allow further excavation.

One highlight of the site is one of the gatehouses, which is one of the best preserved in the Roman Empire. It stands about 10 courses high and you can understand the shape and the function of it.

I didn't spend a great deal of time exploring the site (mainly because there wasn't a lot to see) and had quite a bit of time before my bus arrived at 2:30.

I wasn't looking forward to the bus ride back to Newcastle. I was due to catch the bus from Birdoswald at 2:30, but it didn't go all the way back to Newcastle. Instead, I would have to get off at Haltwhistle, wait an hour, and then catch another bus back to Newcastle. So, I would leave Birdoswald at 2:30 and wouldn't get back to Newcastle until 6:00pm. I knew that there were trains from Haltwhistle to Newcastle several times a day, so when I got to Haltwhistle I had a look to see when the next train would be. It turned out that the train was due about 5 mins after I got off the bus and it would only take an hour to get to Newcastle. So, I arrived in Newcastle at 4:00, rather than 6:00. I was very happy!

I enjoyed my days spent exploring the Wall. There is something so evocative about the wall marching its way across the hilly landscape of Northern England. What I love most is gazing out over the landscape, with Hadrian's Wall a distant spine running across the mountains, and seeing individual figures, highlighted against the landscape, with their heads down, trekking alongside the Wall - it's simply majestic.

Tomorrow I'm leaving Newcastle and heading for Edinburgh.