With the bank holidays finished till August, this week we’re exploring Northumberland.

Leaving a hectic Durham Club site, we head north past Newcastle. Then with the motorways and dual carriage ways behind us, we turn off into the Northumberland National Park.

After booking this part of the early summer tour a few months ago, we’ve been looking forward to these stops. Not only are we staying at several 5 star campsites but we’re going to see some places we’ve wanted to for ages.

What did the Romans ever do for us?

I’m surprised that I’ve not been to Hadrian’s Wall before. It’s one of those things you learn about in school that somehow gets shuffled out of your head as life happens. I’m glad our lifestyle gives us time to shuffle it back in. I’m excited to see it.

For the next few days, we’ll be staying at Herding Hill Farm campsite. It looks like a cracker although we need to arrive after three o’clock.

Our route in takes us along the B6318, Military Road past Chester’s Roman Fort. Seeing as we have time to spare, we disguise Beatrix as a coach and park up. Let’s see if we can learn a little bit about these Romans.

After a late lunch, we drive the final few miles in Herding Hill Farm. The road in is a little bit tight and we don’t meet any traffic and pull into the reception pretty easily.

As is becoming a theme on this tour, we seem to surprise campsite wardens with the size of Beatrix when we arrive. I know she is pretty big and we do always add a comment or call ahead when we book to let them know…… it’s surprising how few of them seem to take note of it.

Thankfully, it’s all pretty relaxed here and the wardens find us a spot we can squeeze into without issue. The site is beautiful with space for motorhomes, tents and twenty or so glamping pods, with Jacuzzi’s! As well enjoying the ‘first-class’ showers, we pre-ordered local farm ingredients for a full cooked breakfast. Mmmmmmm.

Hadrian’s Wall

In the end, the weather makes our plans for us. The first day promises clouds but no rain so we go off to walk the wall. We know we’ve made a good decision when the clouds open up into a warm and sunny afternoon.

Today’s walk will take us up from the campsite to Hadrian’s Wall at Cawfield Quarry. From here, we follow the wall east, up and down the craggy Northumberland countryside as far as Housesteads. Reaching the highest point at Winshields and we’re out of breath. Only carrying a rucksack, I can’t imagine how much effort it took to bring all the stones up here. And the wall we see is barely half the height it was.

The walk is about 12km but the hills mean it takes us about three and a half hours. As we reach Sycamore Gap, we decide to stop for our packed lunch. We’re not the only ones.

It’s a steep and rocky descent to the sad stump which is all that remains of the famous Robin Hood tree. Happily, it’s showing signs of life and National Trust have added some fencing to protect the growth. Hopefully it’ll return to it’s former glory one day.

We finish our journey with a stroll down into Housesteads which advertises itself as Britain’s most complete Roman fort. It certainly looks much bigger than Chester’s which is are only real source of reference.

As we’ve approached from the wall, we find we can’t go in without first buying a ticket from the giftshop / cafe down by the road. However, once we reach the cafe neither feet nor paws have the energy to go back so we settle for a cup of tea and a cake instead. We’re not too fussed missing it as we really wanted to walk along the wall.

With the day getting on, we jump on the little circular bus home. It goes past all the main Roman sights and handily stops right outside our campsite.

All in all a cracking day out.

In search of dark skies……

The next day is a bit of a wash out but we enjoy a damp walk down into Haltwhistle. This gives us chance to check out a different road to leave on. Depending on which road sign you trust, the main road might, or might not, be closed tomorrow.

Before we leave, we fill up our water and drop our grey waste water.

In the end, we can get out the same way we came in. However, as we reach Chester’s roundabout to turn north, the road closures catch us out and we can’t go any further this way. Excellent. The road closures are really haphazard through this area at the moment.

Indecisively circling the roundabout three times is about as much as we can get away with so we head back to Chester’s to make a new plan.

As we’ve got time, we opt to head back out towards Newcastle and then head north from there. The route takes us along the hilly A68 and then up and into the Northumberland National Park. We’re slow through here but traffic is light, it’s a beautiful day and we’re in no rush.

Our destination is Kielder Waterside Park.

The campsite here is part of a waterside park. There’s camping, accommodation, restaurant and bar with access to water sports all in middle of the Kielder forest.

Despite arriving a little later than we planned, we break out the bikes and get outside for cycle. There’s a route that goes all the way around the reservoir but for now we settle for a little pootle about followed by a beer in the sunshine by the lake. Well it is Friday evening.

On Saturday, our planned circular cycling adventure doesn’t quite go according to plan. For some reason Sally’s bike has stopped changing down gears properly and we find that the cycle track is perhaps a bit more of a mountain bike track. We’ve got hybrid style bikes so the tyres are probably ok for gravel but we’re less sure about the larger stones and rocks. Seeing a mountain biker fixing his flat tyre makes us think discretion maybe the better part of valour here. Neither of us fancy pushing the bikes back 20km home.

Seeing the stranded mountain biker makes us think. We actually don’t usually carry anything with us when we go out on the bikes. I’m not sure what a standard ‘bike carry pack’ would look like but I think we’d better get a pump and puncture repair kit just in case. Do they still fix bike punctures like I used to when I was a kid?

One of the attractions of booking into Kielder Water is the fact that it’s in a dark sky region. I’m hoping we’ll get front row seats to a star filled night overlooking the water.

Eagerly, we sit with the front open and wait for night to fall.

The first problem, we belatedly realise, is that we’ll be waiting for a long time. Perhaps coming to see the stars so close to the longest day of the year is not the best idea? Sadly, the second problem is the clouds which slowly gather but eventually spoil our star gazing.

Bad water?

The next morning, we notice that our tea does not taste at all right. Crisis.

After checking all the taps and the hot water, there is definitely something off. We’re a bit surprised that the water coming through our drinking water filter also smells and tastes unpleasant. We’ve got so used to this providing it’s consistent, slightly bland flavour no matter where we are, it’s a real surprise.

We speak to the previous campsite, there are no reports of issues although it’s hard to imagine where else it’s come from. We drop the fresh water tank and decide we’ll refill at the next campsite to hopefully cure the problem.

There’s going to be a problem if the tea doesn’t taste right.

We hope you’ve enjoyed catching up with our travels.

Lots of love Sally, Toby and Merlin