On the Wall

We arrived in Hexham, a small, quaint town whose main feature is the large abbey. We could not go in, sadly, because of a wedding featuring some really spectacular hats, but we were able to wander the grounds of the impressive abbey anyway.

            We boarded our bus to Hadrian’s Wall, which took us to several places along the wall that have particularly interesting features. My parents had originally intended for us to hike the entire wall, but (luckily) that wasn’t going to happen, so instead we went to some key sites. The first of these was Vindolanda, a series of low walls that were once a Roman auxiliary fort. There is little left of the original stone used, and many of the charming little cottages we passed appeared to in fact be made of ancient Roman stone. Waste not, want not, I suppose.

            Part of Vindolanda is an active archaeologic dig site, but we were able to walk around the parts that had already been excavated. I enjoyed meandering around the daisy-covered hills, but when it started drizzling, we decided to stop for some hot drinks before catching the bus to Housesteads.

            Unlike Vindolanda, Housesteads actually has parts of Hadrian’s Wall- (Vindolanda has a reconstruction). We climbed carefully up a giant hill, cheered on by the plaintive bleating of billions of sheep, who had seen fit to turn the already horrible climb into an obstacle course by making the road their toilet. We finally reached the top of the hill to view the remains of the fort and parts of the wall, and I took time to appreciate the good vantage point from which to spot approaching enemies, or, in this case, sheep. We strolled around the grassy hilltop for a bit before heading gingerly back down the slope to our bus.

            We took the bus back to Hexham and went around, sightseeing the town for a while. The town, as I mentioned before, is terribly charming, with small stone buildings wreathed in flowers. We stopped for dinner before getting back to our hotel to retire for the night.