Up The Lake District and Across Hadrian's Wall
Nov. 11-13, 2005
We drove across the island to the west coast on Friday afternoon. We went to The Lake District. We stayed at a B&B in Kendal. We stumbled onto a tiny house owned by a lady named Janice. We were told to try some famous Kendal Mint Cake when we were in Kendal. It’s supposed to be really good, but you can only find it in this area of the country. Then we found out it was only sold at newsagents and not restaurants. That made us a little doubtful about the supposedly yummy taste. We heard the chocolate covered ones were best, so we gave it a shot. It came in a package kind of like a candy bar. I was wishing for a little liquid courage first, as you all know I AM a supertaster. Of course, everything goes better with a pint or two or five. England is known to be the biggest binge drinking country in Europe; I’m smack in the middle of it all and I can’t even have a single pint. It’s seems a bit like punishment to me, but I digress. The chocolate mint cake was similar to a York Peppermint Pa
tty, but more solid in the middle. Not nearly as good, by the way.We drove up tiny roads through the Lake District. It was beautiful countryside with green rolling hills, lots of lakes and even more sheep. Once we found some sheep on the road. You can see how small the back roads are.
We found Castlerigg Stone Circle after driving by it once. It’s a bit like Stonehenge—a big group of rocks out in the middle of a pasture no where in particular. There was not audio tour, so we didn’t learn a whole lot.
Next stop was in Penrith Castle. Another freebie with no audio tour. It’s 15th century remains in a cute little city park. England’s cute!
We came across Lanercost Priory, which was built in the 13th century. They spent most of their days praying, worshipping in song, or in silence. Many of the walls are destroyed now, partially from people taking the materials many years ago, and from weather over hundreds of years.
We drove along Hadrian’s wall, which was resurrected by the Romans to keep the Scots out of their domain. It is over 75 miles long and stretches all the way across the country from west to east. There are several remains of forts all along the way. By the time we got to the first fort it was sunset. Very pretty, but hard to see the different stops along the wall.
We decided to stay the night in Corbridge. First thing in the morning we visited the remains of a Roman town in Corbridge. The city was founded in AD85. There are remains of granaries and a fountain house with aquaducts under all the buildings for water and heating purposes.
The wall ends in Tynemouth on the east coast. We visited Tynemouth Priory and Castle remains located on the top of a cliff with the ocean pounding against the wall below. The Priory, founded in 1090, had a graveyard for saints and kings located behind
it. Some of the headstones were decaying in an odd pattern like brain coral. Remains from both World Wars were also located on the top of the cliff. 
On the drive back down we saw Hylton Castle built in 1374. Abe was caught marking his spot on the castle wall. He has been doing that along the historic sites of Britain.
From there we tried to find Barnard Castle. We got to the town but drove around a bit and by the time we found it, it was closing time. So we bought a bunch of truffles for dessert.
We are still staying in hotels until December. We are in a small village called South Cave. The hotel is called Cave Castle, which is an old castle built for a family to live in at one point.
The belly seems to be growing a little bigger each day. Here’s a picture in the Castle by some animal heads and horns hanging in the hall.
I can’t seem to get enough chocolate these days. It’s just so much better here. A couple of nights we went to the store and bought nothing but chocolate for dinner. We were like a couple of 7 year olds in a candy store picking new kinds of candy bars whilst getting the old faithful as a backup. The Castle has a good gym and they have exercise classes I have been taking. When I told the instructor
today I was 19 weeks she said I was tiny! As you can clearly see, I am anything but tiny, but it made me feel good. Cheers!PS
The Lizard should be here in a week or two!