So This Is Where Everyone Goes For Their Hens And Bucks Nights!!

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And I Just Happen To Arrive On A Friday

After six hours on the train (and I discovered that some trains not only have power points but also have free WIFI!!!) I finally came in to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Being a Friday night, I fought my way through the throngs of men dressed in pink tu-tus and women in veils to my hostel right in the middle of it all. A large hostel that seems to be made more for the weekend party goers then for the traveller but with two nights booked, I was about to find out exactly how much of a party hostel it was.

Trying to find a quiet pub on a Friday night in Newcastle is like trying to find where that last screw goes when you put something back together. You know it’s in there somewhere but damned if you can see it. Must have been a sign to give my liver a break for at least a day, so I was back pretty early. That’s when it all went pear shaped. At about midnight, the throngs of tu-tu wearing blokes and hysterical girls all start flowing back in, slightly more intoxicated then when I last saw them, and decide that that’s the perfect time to walk as loudly as possible up wooden stairs and down for about the next four hours all while singing everything from Robbie Williams to their local football team’s anthems and chants. Fun times!! Don’t worry… I got my own back! Mwahahaha

Early the next morning, I was up and about to try and get a full day in at Hadrians Wall about two hours West of Newcastle and guess what….. those stairs were out in full force!!! Hopefully it was worse for them while nursing a hangover!! Nasty aren’t I??

Hadrians Wall was built in the early second Century by just three groups of Roman soldiers over the space of six years. It originally spanned the full distance from South of Carlisle to Newcastle (80 Roman miles or over 117 kilometres) and stood at over two metres tall. Mile Markers were (obviously) placed at each Roman mile and turrets were included into the design. In the next two Centuries, Roman forts were built near or around the turrets creating great settlements of soldiers, their families, shops and administrations along the wall, particularly around the gates that the turrets guarded leading into the North. The wall itself was not just a defensive line, it was a statement from the Emperor saying this is where our empire ends and we shall go no further. It became the defining line so that on one side was the Empire and on the other were barbarians and the wall was used also to regulate traffic flow in to and out of the Empire as well as probably a customs and taxation point.

First stop for me wasn't actually on the wall at all but about two miles South of it. Vindolanda was the largest Roman settlement near the wall consisting of a fort (barracks, officials residence, court, treasury, chapel and hall), outer wall, settlement (houses and shops), guard turrets at all the gates, and two bath houses. The site is the most rewarding of all Roman excavations not just because of the sheer volume of artefacts that have been discovered but also because of what they have discovered... tablets containing an the earliest writing in Britain including store lists, daily rosters, duty officer reports and even an evaluation on the regiments strength. The most notable one is written by a civilian woman inviting the main officer's wife to a party. This is the earliest writing known between females and the British Museum's top treasure. The site is impressively large for a frontier settlement and excavation continues there now. They say there is enough to keep them occupied for another hundred years yet just at this site alone.

Back on the bus and I was headed for Housesteads Fort, a garrisoned fort from about 10 years after the wall was built. The Romans decided that they should move all their forts up to the wall instead of having them a couple of miles off from them, to give greater manpower and response times at the gates. The soldiers that patrolled the wall used to have to spend some time living in the turrets before that so this gave better reinforcements and happier men cause they didn't have to walk the two miles there and back for each roster as well as being closer to their families. Housesteads was one such fort that butted up against the wall and used it for it's North wall and gate. Once again consisting of military buildings and a settlement flowing out to the South, it is perched up high on a ridge line with the wall stretching out into the distance from East to West and Northumberland National Park as far as the eye can see to the North. A couple of miles to the West of Housesteads is a place called Sycamore Gap, where the ridge line drops between two hills and a lone sycamore tree stands against the wall. This place was made famous by it's involvement in the movie Robin Hood : Prince Of Thieves when Kevin Costner sat in it's limbs for a scene. It's a hell of a long way from Nottingham Forest though!!

Last stop for the day was where Hadrians Wall crosses the North Tyne at a place called Chesters. A different fort because it was built at the same time as the wall to guard both the gate and the bridge over the river. Because of this the wall runs up to the West and East where it joins the fort walls to provide extra security, thereby placing the fort as the gate in the wall. A solidly built and heavily fortified area consisting of ten turrets around the outer wall, it must have looked imposing in it's day.

Back to Newcastle for round two with the stairs from hell, but with ipod plugged in and after so much walking in the wilderness.... not a problem.

"People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive." - The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell

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Comments

[amy denning]

ha ha ha!!!
i woulda gone nuts with all that noise!!! btw you misspelt hysterical!!! ha ha pink tu tus!!!

[Russell Gage]

payback
Dude, you shoulda gladwrapped the dunnies :)