Once again we took the long way round as checkin isn’t usually til 3pm. This means we have all day to get to places, so it’s a stop start kind of journey…anything interesting and we stop!

Haltwhistle was recommended as the place to stay in order to see intact sections of the wall close by. It was an excellent choice. We stayed at The Manor House Inn.

Our first stop was Vindolanda, fort and museum. A major Roman excavation site. The archaeologists have been finding lots of writing tablets…ink on wood. I cannot believe they can sift through the mud and find such minute pieces…then analyse and interpret them.

The museum was excellent too. Plenty to see and read, really well organised.

Then we went searching for some actual wall! There are so many stone walls in the area, but soon realised the wall along the crest of the hill was the one we were looking for!

It made a lot more sense when we could see the remnants of the wall along the ridge, and realising it was originally much higher helped me understand what an impressive barrier to the “wild hordes” in the north it would have been.

Our last stop for the day was The Roman Museum, which was also excellent. It included a film about life on the wall for soldiers, very informative. By this stage we were glad to escape the rain and took our time looking around.