October Half Term 2013-Northumberland

Northumberland

The kids were on half term break all week, and part of the week following Oct 21-25.  Most of their commitments were cancelled on account of the break (things like Scouts, piano, etc).  J is in a community youth theatre group (doesn't get enough drama at home, I guess.  Or thinks he can create more outside the home???) that was meeting this week on Thursday evening (normally is a Friday evening).  Its important he is there, as their production is in December, and its difficult to put a show on when parts are merely read in.  We did pull him out 30 minutes early.  We departed for Northumberland approximately 8:30pm.
Northumberland is near the Scottish border, south of Edinburgh.  Kids wanted to go to another haunted castle for Halloween.  Here's a brief map image.

Thursday 24 October 2013
We picked J up from theatre group ~8:30 pm.  We made one stop, and managed to make it to our destination at about 12:45am.  Pretty uneventful drive.

Friday 25 October 2013

We all had a bit of a lie in, after our late evening.  It also was raining, so we played games and did some reading, and had a relaxed morning.  As it started to clear up, we headed out locally, near Rothbury, for a hike.  On our way to the trail's head, we saw some interesting sights.




Scottish Highland Cattle



We were near the Scottish border

 We also saw many pheasant and grouse crossing the road, everywhere we went.

Always interesting to see the varied flora and fauna
 when we are out and about.  We saw this type of mushroom
 near the car park at the trail's head.

Saw the above sign posted near the start of the trail.  As in Cumbria, where we went last Autumn half term, red squirrels are endangered, and there are signs protecting them.  This sign showed they are endangered due to the introduction of the American grey squirrel.

Slow down for the squirrels!!

Trail head.  Should've known it was a bad sign
 when the growth was so tall.  This is a full sized sign-6-7 feet tall.

We initially had a bit of difficulty finding the start of the trail.   We did find it, but it was a bit overgrown in parts.

 If you're seven years old, its easy to get stuck in the trail.
   This picture shows how nicely the weather cleared up.
 



Nice scenery.  Notice how overgrown the trail is--that's a good section W's on

There were several places where the trail (an exaggeration of the word) tapered down to nothing.  We often wondered if we were following an animal trail, or if it was really a trail at all.  Or was the growth matted down from our passage?  Is this the path?  Or is this?  We found two markers along the way, and spent a lot of time trying to figure out if we were going the right way or not.   No mobile phone reception. There were several areas where we crossed burns (creeks), and it was very wet and boggy in general.  We guessed a lot, and were very uncertain.  It was just moors and craggy countryside and trees, with sogginess.  G dumped water out of his wellie when we were done, and wrang out his socks, as he stepped somewhere where the water went over his boot.

The trail was very overgrown, with lots of ferns growing everywhere.  Almost lost N here (can you see him?)--in places the ferns were up to my shoulders.

N emerging from a rough patch of the path

There's N!

Trail was hard to navigate for W too



The scenery was pretty.

Let's do some hiking

Impressive views

 Note the wet jeans on everyone

Smile--kinda bright out, eh?

 


The 3 bros

Saw this formation on the hilltop.  Not sure is its just separating fields,
 or what it signifies.

It is amazing that all the buildings are made of the sandstone.  And I do mean all the buildings.  They just look so old and quaint.

After our excursion, we went into Rothbury, purchased more provisions, and went home for some warm showers, and dinner.

Saturday 26 October 2013

Our first destination was Bamburgh Castle, on the northeast coast bordering the North Sea.  To get there, we took more Unnamed Roads.  In rural Scotland, Cumbria (the Lake District), and Northumberland, there are just a smattering of roads.  It is not very densely populated, and there are tiny villages-some without even a petrol station.  Many rural roads, which are apparently largely unnamed, according to the satnav.  We'd turn from one single-lane unnamed road, onto another.  When the road T'd, there'd be official sign posts pointing you to the next community, but you were still on one lane roads.  They were more like farm service roads, if you ask me, but that's what some of the roads are like.  Sandstone buildings everywhere.  Very typical English scenery, including the many sheep.




There were pheasants everywhere.  We also saw many grouse.
 This is on one of the many one lane, unnamed roads we travelled upon.

Just picturesque countryside scenery
 everywhere you looked.

Approaching Bamburgh Castle

A bit about the gentleman who restored Bamburgh

Bamburgh Castle



View of parts of castle

Having a chin wag at the castle

Cannons to play on

Castle



King W and his loyal subject.  But look out!  Who's behind you, and what will he do?

There were some impressive state rooms. 

State room

Then it was on to play Ultimate Hide and Seek.  Here's W in the sand pit seeking.  J is in the grass just to the left of the sand bowl, and N is in the grass near J, but is hard to see.

G in the dunes



Bamburgh Castle

 J in the water



Smile!

N in the ocean

We then went to a "secret" beach.  You drove down a road,
 and had to go directly through a farm to access the beach.
  This is the gate into the farm.

Our two helpers opening the gate for us.

You also put money into an honesty box.  Money was donated to a church.

The kids paused for a picture.

We didn't stay at Sugar Sands too long, as kids were getting tired, although they'll never admit it.  We stopped for a bite to eat, and headed home along the scenic coast to watch Harry Potter #2 (we'd watched #1 the previous evening).

Sunday 27 October 2013

This day we had three things planned, but only made it to two, sadly. 

Number one on the agenda, due to its opening time of 9am, was Barter Books, one of the largest secondhand bookshops in Britain, with over 350,000 books.  I have no pics, but will tell about it.  A real neat history of the bookshop, its located in an 1887 Victorian rail station that had passenger service until 1968.  There are a few giant murals in the store, one of which has 30 famous writers depicted within its 18 ft by 16ft borders.  Old fashioned trains run on tracks overhead, and the books are all catalogued appropriately. Another interesting thing:  in 2000, nine years after the shop opened, the husband (of the husband-wife team who opened the store) found a rare, original WWII poster in a box of old books from an auction.  The wife had it framed, and hung it up in the shop, where its design caught on.  Now the Keep Calm and Carry On has went everywhere, even across the pond.  You recognize this sign?  In the link to Wikipedia next to it, it lists the store and tells more about the finding of the sign.    We could've spent more time here, but other attractions awaited.  J chose some Harry Potter books (I thought he had them all?), which was most appropriate, as you'll soon see.  I found some neat vintage housekeeping and humor books.  Those got put aside when I found some old Beatrix Potter books.  I got two--a circa 1930s edition of The Tale of Pigling Bland, and a circa 1920s ed of The Tale of Tom Kitten.  Probably the oldest ones I'll ever be able to purchase.  We also got a 1978 ed (first edition) of The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs, which I also have a soft spot for.  J got a VCR tape (!) of it in kindergarten, as some sort of a reward by his teacher, and we've loved it since.  We are seeing it in the West End as a family just before Christmas.  You can read more about the store here.

Our next stop was Alnwick Castle.   Follow the link here to see it.  LOTS to see, we ended up spending the whole day here, which is why we managed to see only two of our three intended sights for the day.



Entrance to the castle, with the Brit flag flying

Sheep grazing on the side

Perhaps you recognize this castle?  The entrance was used as the main entrance to Hogwarts in Harry Potter 1 and 2.  Warner Bros added torches to the entrance, and the supports used to hold the torches couldn't be removed from the arrow slits, so parts of the torch holders remain within the arrow slits.  As we approached the castle, N was having a lot of fun trying to catch the many falling leaves.  It got windier as the day progressed.  Gale force winds are expected on the southern coast tomorrow, and train services have been changed in anticipation.

The reason we chose to go to Northumberland on our half term, was because last year's half term, we'd gone to the Lake District, and the kids had so enjoyed Muncaster Castle, which is VERY haunted.  Ghost Hunters have gone there every year for some 20 years, and still can't explain goings on.  They have ghost sits, and all kinds of neat things.  They had really emphasized the ghosts and spirits, and the kids had fun with it, and requested a similar experience.  Check it out here.

This year, we planned our time around a visit to Alnwick and Alnwick Castle.  Alnwick had a lot of Halloween activities planned, and was used in filming Potter 1 and 2.

This sign shows SOME of the myriad
of things on offer at the castle.

First order of business, was to get to Knight's Quest,
 where you could get limited tickets
 for broomstick training, important for all prospective
 quidditch players.  By the time we got there,
 at about 1030, they were booking for the 1:30pm session.



N paused to get his pic taken by a mighty dragon slayer.

Kids stuck close by our sides......

They had lots for kids to do---lots of costumes to try on, soft stuffed knights throughout to practice jousting and to sharpen your sword on, arts and crafts where you could make magic wands and such.  All kinds of medieval things.  The staff was fabulous, very humorous, always in character, and very accommodating.  Our kids were way too cool to do any of those things, so we moved on to....

.... Dragon's Quest, which was a type of small
 haunted house, themed in dragons and killing, of course.

They even had a vortex!!  I kept thinking of the HHH.  Except instead of hard rock and multicolored strobes, they had spooky music, and glow in the dark skulls.  It seemed shorter than the HHH one.  I've never seen one anywhere else.

From there, we peeked in the coach house to see their one coach.  It was used last in 2011 for Lady Katie's wedding, and again this past summer for Lady Melissa's wedding.  Talk about a fairy tale wedding!

They had Katie's wedding dress on display.  In the castle, they had
Melissa's wedding guest book on display.

The castle is one of the largest that is still lived in.  Currently, the 12th Duke and Duchess reside within the castle.  The 2nd Duke of Northumberland fought at Bunker Hill and Lexington.

The castle's been in the family for some 700 years.

We took a historical tour of the castle, then toured the state rooms.  No photography allowed.

One of the views of the surrounding area, including the River Aln.

 Then, it was on to broomstick training....

...and the kids were very attentive.

J managed to fly on his broom,

while W showed us

his broomstick levitating skills

(we had no idea!).

W levitating his broomstick.

N was the best student.

He managed to cast a spell

on his broomstick,

make it levitate,

and fly on the broomstick.

We also took a tour that showed us all the places, and tidbits of info from the movies.

And Hagrid and Harry themselves showed up, and did a presentation.

Nice scenery from the castle

We also wanted to tour the Alnwick Gardens, which are immediately next door to the castle.  They have a whole section on poison plants, appropriate for Halloween, as well as a HUGE treehouse you can eat in.  But, our time was up for the day.  Here's a link so you can check it out.  Alnwick Garden.

By the end of the day, it was very windy and raining.  After dinner, it was home for Harry Potter #3 (what else??).

Monday, 28 October 2013
We departed from our cottage for home.  On the way, we wanted to see Hadrian's wall as we were very near it.



As we were driving to our destination,
 we saw something ahead on the road.

As we came closer, we saw that they were
 herding a bunch of cattle into another pasture.
  The animals were running,
 and the kids thought we would be stampeded.

Eventually,  they all went
 where they were supposed to go.

Also on our way, we saw the place we'd eaten at
 the previous evening, the Three Wheat Heads.

Essentially, Hadrian's Wall is a wall built to marcate the Roman empire--roughly dividing Britain into Roman rule south of the wall, and the area we now call Scotland, which was difficult for the Romans to keep under control.  (They thought of the Highlanders as barbarians.)  A wall of eighty miles was built.  They did not want to station legions of soldiers here, defending the border, as they could be used elsewhere in the then vast Roman Empire, so they built the wall.

Just beautiful countryside to drive through

Approaching a town by the name of Scot's Gap.
  You gotta wonder where, and when, a lot of these towns
 got their names.  When was there a gap in the Scots here?
  Was there a battle here....?

The wall roughly remains, some sections in better condition than others.  It runs from Bowness on Solway in the west, to Wallsend in the east, the width of Britain at that point.  There is a walking trail that runs alongside the trail, so you can walk the wall.  There are various outfitters that will transport your belongings along the trail from hotel to hotel.  There are various Roman forts and such that have been preserved along the wall as well.

We went to a fort that was along our way home, Housesteads Roman Fort, that had a newly built visitors' center associated with it, to help explain the wall and the fort, and things you saw.  (It was also free, with our Nat'l Trust card-gotta love it!)



Housesteads claims to be the most complete Roman fort in Britain--I believe it.  When you are there, with all the remnants there, and a guide explaining things to you, why this rock looks like this, and what went on in each room, etc, it's just hard to wrap your head around the fact that this was built 1900 years ago.  We saw the commanding officer's "house", and the barracks where some 800 would have stayed, the hospital, various entrances into the fort, and the toilets. 
 

Some of the wall

 

Part of the fortress-this is actually the latrines.
They'd sit down with their backs against the walls,
 and use the holes in a wood floor (now gone).

More of the fortress

Remains of the fortress

The fortress was immense

 The visitor center is at the base of a hill, and there was a hike to climb to the fort.  Our tour guide broke the hike up a bit by stopping and telling us various things.  By the time we reached the fort, it had started to sleet, and it was very cold.  We walked about with our tour guide as he told us all about the fort, but we did not take a lot of pictures due to the weather.  There was stunning scenery as well, being up on a hill, and this part of England being not as populous.  Which is part of the reason why this particular fort is as intact as it is--not as many people settling and building, and taking the rock as building material.  If I recall correctly, there was also a gent that started to want to protect the wall about the 1800s.

After we finished touring, we needed some food for our way home.  We passed through a town by the name of Twice Brewed, and we shortly encountered a pub of the same name.  Not sure which came first, the town, or the pub.

Twice Brewed Inn......

....in the village of the same name.

After lunch, it was lots of driving, and back to reality.

Favorite things of our extended weekend to Northumberland:

N:  H Potter castle, Beaches and the honesty box, Barter Books, Hadrian's Wall, forest walk

W: Battleaxes and Broomsticks tour of Alnwick Castle, forest walk

J:  Alnwick Castle (all of it), forest walk

G:   Alnwick Castle, Hadrian's Wall

L:  Alnwick Castle, Barter Books

Thanks for reading-stay tuned for more adventures!