Illuminating Hadrian's Wall

After far too long spent like this (and yes, I do smack my head into the stupid rafters EVERY TIME I stand up, but there's really no where else to move my desk):

I took a much needed break to go check out the Illuminating Hadrian's Wall event March 13th, 2010. The event was in part in recognition of the 1600th anniversary of the end of Roman rule in Britain and served as the opening event for British Tourism Week. Can you imagine? 1600th. We just don't usually think in that kind of time-scale in the States. Anyway, the event features 84 miles of Hadrian's Wall lit up by beacons at certain intervals spreading from one end of the country to the other.

If you aren't familiar with the Wall, it was built by Emperor Hadrian (partly as a look at me being an effective and ruthless emperor campaign) around the year 122 to create a defensible line between the boundary of Roman-controlled Britain and the Picts to the north. While parts are now less impressive, when it was built, the wall stretched from coast to coast, although admittedly at one of the narrowest points of the island, and featured milecastles at approximately every Roman mile along the wall (they could be off a bit if the local terrain demanded it). The wall when constructed was around 15 meters high (that's ~45 feet, so not small), although much of the stone was later pilfered for other construction projects after the Romans left. So that's what it is, now let me tell you about our adventures getting there.

We start our tale today with four grad students seeking to escape paper-writing and see something that's never been done, a once-in-a-lifetime-experience (or so the event organizers claim). One of them (ok, guilty as charged) finds a link to a walking tour out of Haltwhistle to a suitable location for viewing the Wall. So our intrepid adventurers set off with backpacks and hiking boots to the little town of Haltwhistle (which sadly was not named for the train station, but apparently Hal-twysel, meaning something about the meeting of two rivers.) So we headed for the York train station and thought we'd be clever by taking the newly reopened shortcut and promptly got caught up in this:

Some kind of regatta that none of us were expecting was taking over both banks of the Ouse, so we ended up dodging rowers and boats and spectators and more boats being carried down to the river. Then we were off by train to Newcastle, which by the by has excellent cheese and bacon pasties. Then we took a little dinky train to Haltwhistle and despite our concerns that it would conk out before we even left the station, it chugged along and got there just fine. We met up with the walking group people and set off on a 40 minute hike through the woods.

Now I'm totally city girl. I'll deal with the 'burbs, but really, city girl. And I'll admit that it was super nice to get out of the city and "commune with nature" for a bit. But for views like what I'm about to show you, it might just be worth it to give it all up and become a sheep rancher out in the boonies.

We passed streams and cliffs (which reminded me oddly of Pennsylvania and West Virginia)

and rolling hills and old stone walls (quite possibly made with stone from Hadrian's Wall)

and an old lime kiln (gotta keep those fields fertilized). Ok, now here comes a bunch of pretty pictures.

See the snow way off in the distance?

And there's Hadrian's Wall. No really. Can't you see it? Maybe this will help.

So we were slightly disappointed with how completely not close to the wall we were, but on the other hand, we had a great vista of a loooong stretch of the wall lit up. It continues...

in this direction way behind the sheep. Speaking of sheep,

this lamb got separated from its mother with a fence between them and couldn't figure out that it needed to walk like ten feet down and there was an opening in the fence. Instead, it played Marco Polo with its mom for like an hour, which got really old really fast. We were watching the sheep drama unfold and cheering as it slowly made its way towards the gap, only to end up trying to climb through the fence like a foot from the opening before Momma Sheep finally figured it out and got baby around the fence and into the field, sparking cheers from the Americans/Canadians and chuckles at the Ameradians from the Brits.

There's more wall, complete with farm house right next to it. How cool would it be to have Hadrian's Wall right in your backyard?

I think this picture comes the closest to getting across the sheer majesty of what we got to see as the sun set. Pictures don't quite capture it as well as the human eye, but take my word for it that it was breathtaking with the hills and the old stone walls and the red and gold in the sky. I would not mind at all seeing that everyday.

Once dusk settled in, the wall began to light up.

The beacons started on both ends and worked their way in; here you can see three lights as they work their way westward, while below are two beacons coming from the west.

Here's more from the east.

And that was that. We made our way back in the dark down a super steep hill (not the way we came up- I wouldn't have wanted to climb up that thing) and caught the train home. There was a distinct lack of food available at Newcastle since we got there around 9:30 so we had hot chocolate at the bar and ended up eating dinner when we got back to york around midnight. All and all, we were all a little disappointed that we couldn't get more up close and personal with the wall, but we'll just have to make another trip to hike along part of it.