30. April 2013 4 min read
Day 4 of UK adventure - Hadrian wall,Scotland
Hadrian wall
In the morning we continued through Newcastle towards forts and castles on Hadrian wall. I was really excited about this part, as historically many battles were fought here. Our first stop was Corbridge, the Roman settlement, which are now only ruins with wonderful English grass and museum. Here we got some bearings about Hadrian wall. We thought we will check all forts and points on Hadrian wall, but soon realized they are all just ruins with nice museums on side. I was even more happy as they were all included in our English Heritage card, but on end we just picked two ruins, which we visited.
First stop was Chester, where mighty fort stood some day with bridge over the river, but not much remained. Next stop was Housesteads which is more preserved and where actually you could see few meters of wall. We cannot imagine the scale of the wall, because what remains is just 1 meter high ruin. Really disappointing. This is where we cut our sight of Hadrian wall and went towards Kielder Water and Edinburgh.
Kielder Water
Kielder Water is England`s biggest artificial lake. It is in middle of nothing I could add. The gas here is very expensive so make sure you do not run out of fuel here as first fuel/petrol station is already in Scotland - Jedbough. We went to see this lake and it was a nice sight to make photos but not much happening. I would really love to catch fish here and enjoy the scenery but other than that it was nothing much to see.
Scotland
Kielder Water is next to border with Scotland which was our next destination for the day. It was a really nice entry into Scotland with Border Piper standing right next to Scotland border stone. Also this was the highest point so you could see the landscape into Scotland. Our next stop was Merlose Abbey where we soon realized it is just another ruin. We knew our English Heritage card is not valid here so we asked if there is Scottish card and there was: Scottish Explorer card. It was just for 3 days which you can pick out of 5. Because we knew Edinburgh Castle was expensive and also Stirling castle, we decided that Scottish Explorer card (which is just a receipt with map) was well worth it. After checking the Merlose Abbey we have continued to Edinburgh, where we found a nice hotel in main street towards city. We have decided to scout the city at night and ate a Papa Johns pizza for dinner. I must admit although it was expensive it did taste good.
The next morning we spent time at Edinburgh Castle