Today is our last here in the UK.  We are off to an Easter service in a church about 1000 years old. I will be posting more about our adventures and more pictures, so be sure to check in and hear about how Troy and I almost got blown off a mountainside, reunited a mommy sheep and her little lamb and how a local barkeep tried to put one over on us only to have instant karma hit him right off.  Oh yeah, and the two girls jogging the wall in silly Roman costumes!

Pictues

The pictures will be captioned when we get back.

The real countryside

The hike Tuesday was more of what both Troy and I expected. In and around farms, more lambs, the earthworks that were part of the whole wall defense system and then... A real piece of the Wall, just before we arrived at the little village of Wall to spend the night on the  village green.
Along the path we got to see our first fortified house from the Border Reiver period, walk thru a forest so Tolkienesque that we expected orcs to attack at any moment and stop inside a church from the 630. Nope, I did not leave off the 1. So many things here are incredibly old.
We spent the late afternoon in a local pub, had dinner and got some great advice about what to see and what to skip, then sacked out.

Mom and Gram - you would not believe the number of birds we are seeing. As I type this there is a major pheasant battle going on just up the hill from us

Sophia- when I woke up last night and got out of the tent the hillside was covered with bunnies. It looked like a nighttime episode of Teletubbies!

Anne and Christie- luv u, thanks for making this possible

Well it looks like pictures may have to wait until I can get some coaching from Anne.
Yesterday we left Black Gate in the center of Newcastle about 1PM.  We spent the morning at the North Museum and toured the castle the town is named after.  We started off along the river Tyne and walked thru the suburbs into the rural section of the hike. We even found ponies kept on the public lands along the path.  We got a little turned around about dinner time and things became very interesting. Due to my underestimating he distance we had to travel and overestimating our abilities, we hitched the last three mile and arrived at out campsite in the dark. We had stopped at algal pub only to find out they don't do dinner on Mondays and ended up being served a fantastic English breakfast for dinner by another camper. Troy and I would have slept in a ditch if not for these nice folks. This morning we are not as sore as we thought we would be but it's not all easy going.  We have final seen some of the wall and expect to see the Reiver Gaol this afternoon

Soph, we have seen a riding school doing jumping lessons and about 500 lambs!

We got to Newcastle this morning with no problems and spent the day exploring Segedunum, the first fort on the Wall and then wandering around the city.  We even found the castle the city is named after although it's not so new any more. We had a nice dinner at a local pub and called it a day.  With very little or no sleep on the way over we are both glad that we are not camping yet

Here we go...

Troy and I are almost ready for our trip to Northern England and Southern Scotland. We will be hiking along Hadrians's Wall the week of our Spring Break. We plan to post pictures  and descriptions of our daily adventures and post them here to share with friends and family.  Join us!