The Unknown North

Rhian had always wanted to visit Northumberland, but for various reasons it had not happened

So this was the year for the adventure. Northumberland is a wonderful and mostly under populated county. After a number of castles, one of the classic places to visit is Holy Island so we did, and here is some evidence.

We did not stop there other than for the picture and that was when there was no traffic coming onto the island so we were not in anyone's way while we did.

The way you get there (and back) is the tidal causeway which we had plenty of time to admire because we were not daft enough to leave it until the last minute to try and get off the island

It only took a few minutes for a "baby Land Rover" to come and obey parking rules ... its amazing how small a Discovery looks next to Katy. 

After some days at the coast we headed inland and our next stop was Kielder firest where the only rain we had on the trip interrupted our planning a little. There was a crash on the main road to the forest and lucky for the owner of a Mercedes camper van we were directed onto the back roads 

They had tried to be nice and gone onto the verge to let someone past which is not a good idea in a 3 ton 2 wheel drive vehicle with road tyres. The people trying to push it were getting nowhere fast and it was just digging in so they were really pleased to see us arrive with Katy and a suitably strong piece of rope. 

Knots done..

A bit of reverse gear...

out it popped..

The owner was really happy to have been rescued by the UN! 

After that we made our way down to Hadrian's Wall where some almost unbroken sunshine made up for the poor weather we had just had. No Katy in these as she had to stay in the car parks... nice bit of walling though 

And the obligatory picture of Sycamore gap. I'm almost shocked there is not a post in the ground stating "take picture from here" the number of people who must have done so