One wall slightly weathered

Derwentwater lake at Keswick

 The day dawned cold and windy but at least without the driving rain of the night before. We survived the night in the camper with the strong winds and being bombarded with small pinecones. The people from the caravan park were out early with the tractors and such cleaning up – we did notice that a couple of tenters had bailed out the previous night and I can’t say that I blame them.

Hadrian's wall from Birdoswald
Roman Fort

We headed to Keswick and Derwent Waters lake while the sun was shining. We did take the opportunity to rug up with thermals, scarves, beanies, vests  and overcoats and thank goodness we did because we were still cold. This was the same get up as we had on Mt Snowdon and is the most layers that we have had on at any stage during our trip. We managed through autumn everywhere else, even in the French Alps but summer in England takes the cake. We managed to stay dry as the rain only came in after we had retired to have a morning tea break. The lake was beautiful with stunning views. One of the islands used to be owned by an eccentric Englishman Joseph Pocklington. He had built a castle on the island and used to invite the locals from Keswick to attack his island while he would retaliate by firing his cannons at them. I love how the English label him eccentric when everyone in the world would call him stark raving mad. The English seem to love oddbods. We didn’t take the chance to go to the pencil museum – not sure how they can make a whole museum about pencils – even if they are Derwents. Little did we realise that due to the pure graphite deposits near Keswick there were 4 pencil factories in Keswick. 

Sheep poking around Roman ruins

After Keswick it was off to see Hadrian’s wall and the Birdoswald Roman Fort. Hadrian’s wall is quite fascinating – they only took 7 years to build it and it was certainly much more impressive than what remains now. Some of our builders now could learn a thing or two – but it does go to show what can be achieved with a huge workforce. Hadrian had decided that the Roman Empire could no longer keep expanding so he wanted to secure the borders. To think that 2000 years later parts of it are still in place is quite phenomenal. You also wonder how many of the local fences and buildings have parts of Hadrian’s Wall holding them up!

We made our way to camp behind a pub at Wall tonight and the weather is supposed to become much better tomorrow. They are even predicting that it may get into the 20s with sunny weather by the end of the week – we can hope.

Love to all

S&E