Scotland - Haggerston to Hadrians Wall

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Friday 20th May 2011 Haggerston to Hadrians Wall 108 miles + 206 miles on 21st May 2011
Chris woke up at 5.30am, listened to politics on the radio, got up at 6.30am which explained why we were sat, eating breakfast, overlooking the causeway to Holy island at 07.15am, waiting for the tide to go out!
We were the 2nd vehicle to cross the three mile causeway when the tide receded, and after doing the recommended three mile hike around the island, we visited Lindisfarne Castle. It has been wonderfully renovated and we had views of the Priory and the harbour from the Castle windows.
We noticed that there was a falcon display at 11.00am at a nearby farm, so raced back to just get there in time! It was wonderful – they had this huge baby owl as a guard owl, about 38 days old, who was very tame and had so incredibly soft feathers. They also had another baby owl in a box, that squawked continually and was very ugly!! They flew three of the falcons and Chris volunteered to hold the glove so that one of them flew to him. It wasn’t a very long show but we were able to wander around and see all the other falcons, birds of prey and other owls, including a pair of snowy owls – Edward and Bella!
Onwards to Bamburgh Castle, an enormous red sandstone castle on the edge of the seashore, with views to the Farne islands. Bamburgh Castle used to be the home of King Oswald, the King of Northumberland.
We were a bit castled out by now, so just drove past Alnwick Castle and pushed onto Hadrians Wall along the B6318 which is an old Roman Road. Stopped for the night in Hadrians Wall campsite, a lovely friendly site with food and a small shop and then did a circular three mile walk to Hadrians Wall.
Hadrians Wall was built by the order of Emperor Hadrian in AD122 and stretched, as a continual wall from coast to coast with a mile-castle every 1.48 kilometres. It formed the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire and it seemed fitting that we ended our trip to Scotland at this famous Wall before starting our journey south tomorrow..........The End!
NB - for more pics scroll right down to the bottom!

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