On the road again

It's taken me a while to sort through and get pictures editted from the rest of the Cumbria trip. Cumbia is a lovely, magical place (and I'm told that I'm exceedingly lucky that it wasn't raining, since all that lovely greenness needs a lot of water to sustain it.)

The lake district is a popular vacation spot. Rather than write loads, I'm going to let these pictures speak for themselves. These are photos taken at Derwent Water. Naturally, a trip to the lake district means hiking.

The sun coming across the peak

The intrepid knitter gets ready to pose with her current project. (Yes, I went hiking with my handbag and knitting. Want to make something about that? I've got my tigers and I'm not afraid to use them. )

Very dangerous fishing around in a handbag.

Aha! Out comes that sock. Can you see the yarn

Still knitting away.

and what does this city girl wear.... her tiger socks!

I hadn't realised that Cumbria is so close to Scotland. This is probably the furthest north I've been in Britain.

did you know that I was in the center of the Britain? It's easy for those living in southern Britain to forget how immense Scotland is.

Did you know that Hadrian's Wall ran from Wallsend-on-Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west, a total of 73 miles. The Wall was built by order of the Emperor Hadrian, defining the boundary of the Roman empire. It took approximately 7 years to complete. The wall reached upto 5 meters and at every Roman mile there was a milecastle guarded by at least eight men. Built to separate the Romans from the barbarians (I'm told that these were not the Scots which came later), over the last thousand year or so (it was built in 122AD), very little remains. The wall was probably robbed of stones by the locals and incorporated into their houses.

Crumbling Wall. The remains are fragile...

Stones are too fragile to rest on for a knitting photo, so I thought to just show a sock.

The Romans were damn good engineers. Have you watched What the Romans did for us? with Adam Hart-Davis? Fascinating show that just tells you all about Roman occupation in Britain.

The is the remains of the wall at Birdoswald. It's dead straight.

Inside the museum, this Roman soldier guards his section of the wall. He gave me a fright when I was walking up the stair and saw his shadow looming over me.

Birdoswald Roman Fort has one of the most impressive locations for a Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall. It's set up on a high spur overlooking the River Irthing. You get stunning views.

Looking out from Birdoswald

The intrepid knitting walks to the edge, admiring the view between rows.

The view is lovely, but this is quite an incline. The first picture didn't have me in it, I slipped, nearly fell (yes, some people were looking at me and probably laughing too) and moved out of the crosshairs. Doesn't it look like a sea of broccoli beside me?

He was so cute that I followed him around trying to get a good photo. This guy was starting to look panicked.

Sheep stalked by the intrepid knitter

On the night before I left, I took this picture of Derwent Water.

not just beautiful, but evocative too

Posted by atu at July 2, 2005 11:24 AM