BritRail - Hadrian's Wall

Lurene, Wyona and I were travelling from the west to the east coast of northern England and I was remembering the last thing that Catherine Jarvis said to me. “If you get to see Hadrian’s Wall, you will be living Eric’s dream. He has never been able to make it there.”

We were in the right place at the right time.

All we had to do was get off of the train and take the local bus that the guide book suggests and in one hour we could ride Hadrian’s wall, for the mere price of £3.

“I will not stop and let you take picture. This is a local bus.”

The driver said that to Wyona three times. She assured him that we only wanted the ride – no special stops, no picture taking. And so Lurene and I glued our noses to the window of the bus.

About fifteen minutes into the ride the driver called back to us, “If you want to see Hadrian’s wall, it is coming up and you will have to be looking out of the other window.”

We switched sides, but couldn’t tell Hadrian’s wall from the stone fences in all of the fields.

“You have been riding right on top of Hadrian’s wall for the last 3 miles,” called out the driver. “The pavement is right on top of the wall which has not been excavated.”

In a few more miles his voice was clear again – now you can see the wall.

Indeed we could. And we could see a man in a full kilt giving a lecture to a group who were sitting on the wall.

The bus stopped to let people off at the best fortification on the wall. The parking lot teemed with tourists getting in and out of their cars, and with lines of people going up the paths to the wall.

We had to decide in a split second, whether we wanted to join the other tourists, or keep to the bus, where we had our own tour guide.

We choose the latter, since we were the only three on the bus. He pointed out the tree in which a small boy sat in the Robin Hood film. He drove by a rock that is purportedly on the centre of England. He showed us the bluffs, the ones that show how complete the wall really was as a fortification against the invading Scots.

All of this in one hour – a chance we took to live Eric’s dream.

Love to him for the idea,

The wall was stunning.
Arta