Afterwards, I met up with my fantastic pal Annie who took me for some Vietnamese food and then to a comedy night. Looking at the set list, we had a guess at who was going to be the funniest and who was going to be the Australian. Neither of us won. For a group of unknown comedians, most were very good, and £2 entry for 2 and a half hours was an absolute bargain. If you find yourself in Newcastle on a Wednesday, get yourself down to The Stand. And if you see Annie, get her to tell you her anecdote about Steve and his dad Geoff from her work. It's like listening to bloody Ustinov.
Newcastle this morning was a mix of sunshine and rain. Not the best day to have headed to see Hadrian's Wall, but I would've regretted it if I didn't go. Maybe. I read that the AD122 bus was the best way to explore Hadrian's Wall country, so aimed to catch that from the train station at 9:30am; the only time it leaves from central Newcastle. However, due to all the roadworks outside, I have no idea if it doesn't leave from there currently, or I just missed it as there is no indication as to which bay to catch it from. My only other option was to get the train to the bus's next stop, Hexham. However, the next bus from there was at 13:18, so I had to hang around until then. The service is much more frequent at the weekend, but still not good enough for what is essentially one of the most significant historical landmarks in Britain. So, because of its irregular scheduling, and despite what the website boasted about the bus being a rover service to get on and off at your leisure, I could only pick one site to visit if I wanted to make it back again.
On the train to Hexham, I looked at my phone, at the table, out the window, down the aisle...anywhere but at the gorgeous redhead sat opposite me, eating a baguette in a manner far too seductive for my comfort; seductive inasmuch as she was a girl and I'm lonely. Thankfully she finally finished, and I kindly (but hopefully not creepily) told her she'd smudged a bit of lipstick onto her chin. She thanked me and went about fixing it, and that was the end of our interaction. Then she got a banana out of her bag. I moved seats.
Getting to the Housesteads fort, which I chose as it is apparently the most scenic part of the wall, at 13:44 meant that I could either spend an hour there until the next bus back, or four until the one after that. I'm sorry, I like history and that, but I cannot spend four hours looking at a bunch of old rocks, especially in the rain. Having a quick scout of the museum, I reckoned I could kill 45 minutes in there if I read everything twice, but it wasn't worth hanging around all the rest of the time, so I only got about 40 minutes to look round the ruins in the end.
Like the history of York, we all learned about Hadrian's Wall at school, so I won't go over all that again. A strategic stronghold and deterrent, the fort's location was clearly chosen by the Romans for being the coldest place on Earth. The weather was still mixed, but much more in favour of wind and rain than earlier in the day, and the open plains made me glad I'd worn my waterproof trousers over my jeans, not just one or the other. It was not as scenic as I was hoping for either, so my photos are generally pretty poor.
If anyone is considering visiting a few locations along the old wall line, I would suggest avoiding the crappy bus, unless you go on the weekend or school holidays, and driving instead. You can go at your own pace, spending as little or as much time at each place as you'd like; some of the sites lack any facilities and really are just marks in the ground, but you may be forced to spend hours at each one by the poor bus service. TRAVEL ADVICE ALERT!
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| Yay, rocks! |
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| Away to Scotland. Yah boo! |
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