Fri, 06 Sep 2002

author Tim	location Carlisle, England
posted 10:15 BST 07/09/2002	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/North and Central England ( all photos )

Hadrian's Wall ( No photos )
On this morning we took the car back to have its one remaining niggle looked at - it has a "water in fuel filter" light which intermittently comes on to say hello.
The kindly garage guy put a new filter in after making it quite clear that there actually wasn't any water in there. It seemed ok for a while, but came back again. I'm just back from the garage again today where he said that an auto electrician would have to look at it. Sound expensive? Perhaps, but that three month warranty is real nice here. Booked in for monday morning.
The remainder of the day we spent driving in a general easterly direction under the guidance of Peter, crossing over the Scottish border (yay!) and having a pub lunch. The curious thing is that "pubs" dont really exist in Scotland - they disappear at the border to be replaced by drinking houses almost always connected to a hotel. Quite strange.
Refreshed, we journeyed through Kielder forest - a man-made forest surrounding the largest man-made lake (via a dam) in Europe. Very nice surroundings, and lovely to drive through. The dam itself is quite unlike all the Australian ones I have seen - the back wall is actually grassed over and sheep graze over it!
The return journey was along Hadrian's Wall - the roman wall built to keep the "barbaric" northeners out of the roman-conquered south. It runs almost the width of England, and parts of it even run through modern-day cellars of houses. The part we saw was partially excavated, and we also took in Housesteads fort - one of sixteen "big" forts along the length of the wall. Here, we saw the remains of a hospital, wheel ruts from carts, and probably the earliest central heating system anywhere - dated 124 A.D. or so. As Peter pointed out, it would have been over a thousand years before anything as clever was re-developed elsewhere. Similar for their nifty latrine system!
Percy willingly brought us home, un-daunted by the prospect of water in his fuel filter. The roads are all so empty and great to drive on. He has also done almost two hundred miles (320km) on about about twenty litres of diesel. Very thrifty, which will be handy given the fuel prices over here.

author Tim	location Carlisle, England
posted 09:04 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/North and Central England ( all photos )

Will they fit? ( No photos )

Today we are going to attempt to work out in slightly more detail what we're going to do for the next few days - some day trips and perhaps a few overnight ones.
Oh, and we have to see if our suitcases fit in our new car :)

(customised)