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When we came to Northumberland for the first May bank holiday earlier this year, we did a really nice walk near a village called Harbottle. We enjoyed it so much that we decided that it was worth repeating on this trip to Northumberland too The walk starts from a Forestry Commission car park just outside Harbottle. Harbottle is just under 40 miles from where we're staying in Hexham, so we had a drive of about an hour to reach the car park. I thought it might be busy being a bank holiday, but when we arrived there were only a handful of other cars in the car park. There had been quite a lot of other people walking in the Simonside hills yesterday; this seemed deserted in comparison. It was good to park without any problems anyway and we set off along the trail, following a sign uphill towards the Drake Stone. This is one of those walks where you get most of the uphill out of the way straight away. The path led us quite steeply uphill through a forest, then out into an open area of moorland. Before too long we had a view up to the large stone we were walking towards. The Drake Stone sits on a hill above Harbottle and is said by local legend to have supernatural healing powers. The path to get to the top was a bit steep and rocky in places, although not as steep and rocky as the Simonside walk had been yesterday. The views across the surrounding countryside were lovely when we turned around. Soon we had made it to the top This was the enormous Drake Stone. It was so large it was actually quite hard to fit it all in a photo! The views from the top were great, even though it wasn't the sunniest of days. Once we'd finished admiring them, the next part of the path led us around the Drake Stone and down the other side of the hill. We were walking towards Harbottle Lake. The path was a bit steep again in places, but I was better prepared for Northumberland this time around and had remembered my walking pole The walk instructions had warned that the area around the lake could be boggy. It didn't seem too bad today, but we did find some boggy bits as we climbed up through the nearby forest on the next section of the walk. The path through the woods was lovely. Though there were a few steep bits here too. This bit was definitely a lot easier with a pole Once we came out of the forest, the path levelled off into a nice flat track. I loved the views of the heather here... ...and also the views of the patchwork fields. I loved walking past all these cows slightly less Soon we were back down to the level of the road, which we crossed. We then followed another path alongside a river and through fields. From here we had a view back up towards the Drake Stone on the hill above us. Soon we were back in the village of Harbottle, not far from where we'd left the car. When we came here last time, we had a drink in the beer garden of a pub here which is also home to a pizzeria. Today we had come back planning to eat and we weren't disappointed! We split a meat pizza and a bolognese pizza between us; the bolognese in particular was amazing It was a great end to what has been another fun walk in Northumberland

When we woke up this morning it was a lovely bright sunny day in Hexham We didn't have firm plans for the day in advance, but when we saw how nice the weather was we decided to make the most of it and try out a walk which I'd seen described online as one of the most scenic in Northumberland. The walk was in the Simonside hills near Rothbury, a drive of about 30 miles from where we were staying in Hexham. The walk started from a Forestry Commission car park, hidden down a narrow single track road. It was the sort of place you can only find if you already know it's there! Luckily there was plenty of place to park though, and the parking was free. We set off following a path through the trees. The route initially led us through the forest, which was really beautiful. We had tantalising glimpses of views as we walked. The path soon began to slope uphill and before long we were out of the trees. The walk was a circular one, only 4.5 miles long, but the description suggested it would take 3 hours. The path continued to lead uphill and our efforts were soon rewarded by a view of the hills beginning to appear through the trees. There was about 250m of uphill to do in total (it was very sunny, that's why I'm pulling a strange face in this photo ) We were climbing to the top of this hill. There were some beautiful views as we went up, but it was quick a steep, rocky path. Eventually we made it to the top Well, I think this bit was the very top! There were some amazing views from up here. I could see why it was described as one of the most scenic walks in Northumberland (Standing on this rock wasn't as scary as it looks ) Now that we were at the highest point, a relatively flat path led us across the top of the hills. There were wonderful views in all directions. Eventually the path began to gradually lead downwards. There was lots of heather everywhere and it looked amazing. The only problem was that it also seemed to be a habitat for a lot of flies! I don't seem to have got bitten by anything, but I feel like I spent a lot of time trying to swat them away from me. Soon the descent became quite rapid. We were now quite a long way below where we'd been walking. The path was easy now, starting to lead us back towards the trees. There was still lots of heather everywhere, but fewer flies down here We were most of the way through the walk now, on the final stretch back towards the car park. The last bit of the walk took us along a forest road... ...and then down through the forest itself. We made it back to the car and then headed to the nearby village of Rothbury for a late lunch Rothbury itself seemed like a really pretty village. We had a bit of a stroll around before getting back in the car to head back to Hexham. We've been really lucky with the weather today and managed to get away from people while enjoying great views, so all in all it's been a very successful day

Another bank holiday, another trip to Northumberland It feels like we've been to Northumberland quite a lot over the course of the past year, but it's a really lovely part of the country and - most importantly for a bank holiday - it's quite remote and (hopefully!) going to be a bit quieter than holiday hotspots like Cornwall. We made a reasonably prompt start from home this morning, but ran into a bit of traffic on the drive north. Some of the delays seemed to be caused by people travelling to Leeds for a festival, so the congestion eased up a bit once we were past the junction for Leeds. I'd planned for us to stop en route to Northumberland at a place called Fountains Abbey. I'd wanted to stop here on previous trips north but hadn't been able to, because it's a National Trust property and during the pandemic it was mandatory to book a 30 minute slot. Home to Fountains Abbey was a journey of about 136 miles and with a distance like that it's almost impossible to predict when you are going to arrive. So I'd always had to find other alternatives which didn't require prebooking to visit. We'd actually driven past Fountains Abbey earlier this year when we visited the nearby Brimham Rocks. One advantage of "Freedom Day" having passed is that it's now no longer required to prebook for the National Trust. So today I was quite excited that we were finally going to get to visit Fountains Abbey It was after 1pm by the time we arrived and parked. Initially the car parks looked quite full, but it turned out there was a large overflow car park with plenty of space. Phew! Before long we had our first glimpse of the abbey. The abbey was founded in 1132, as a very enthusiastic National Trust volunteer explained to us at the entrance. It survived until 1539, at which point it was dissolved by Henry VIII. As you can tell from the pictures, the abbey is quite a popular place to visit and there were certainly plenty of visitors today! Once we left the main lawn behind and started following some of the paths around the grounds, we got some quieter views though. The ruins were really impressive; it was clearly an enormous monastery in its day. I knew that this National Trust property was a World Heritage Site, but what I hadn't realised until a National Trust volunteer explained to us is that it's not because of the ruins of Fountains Abbey, but because of what's located next to it. This is Studley Royal Water Garden, which is apparently one of the best preserved examples of a Georgian water garden. This isn't the sort of garden which has flowers; it's more of a landscaped garden with different pools and water features. It was a really pretty place to walk around, even though it was quite a cloudy day. At the end of the water garden we found a tea room, so we stopped for a quick coffee. Then we strolled back along the opposite side of the water garden... ...and back towards the abbey. From this side we could see what enormous windows it must have had! Then it was back in the car for another 75 miles or so towards Hexham, where we're staying in a cottage I found on Airbnb. It's got a cosy living room... ...a little kitchen... ...and an outdoor area with a beautiful view of the countryside The bathroom is rather posh... ...and the bedroom looks lovely too. I think it's going to be a nice place to stay for the next few nights

The apartment we'd booked in Hawick was really lovely, but the blinds on the windows weren't very thick and the shape of the windows meant that the blinds didn't fully cover them. This was the resulting brightness in our room prior to 5am. That meant we had a reasonably early start to the day. We couldn't complain about how beautiful and sunny it was once we stepped outside in Hawick though After yesterday's failure to park, today we were planning to visit a (hopefully!) less popular tourist attraction; a small waterfall in the Kielder Forest. The car park was around 30 miles south of Hawick, and we were relieved to find when we arrived that there was just enough space left to park From the car park, a marked trail led us past a farm... ...and then towards the forest. From there we followed the path through the forest, alongside a stream. We crossed a bridge... ...and had a view of a tiny little waterfall. When we reached the main waterfall, it was much bigger Perhaps not quite as impressive as an Icelandic waterfall, but still very pretty. The best thing about it was that we had the views all to ourselves, which is quite unusual for a beauty spot on a bank holiday From the waterfall, the remainder of the trail took us back uphill... ...across the bridge by the smaller waterfall... ...and then alongside the river. At one point, as we were walking higher above the river, we could hear loudly gushing water nearby. We looked down and realised we were now walking past the top of the waterfall The path continued through the forest... ...finally coming back out in the open by the car park. It was a fairly short walk compared to our hillfort trek on Saturday, but a pretty one. And it was definitely a bonus to be able to enjoy the waterfall without hordes of other people

When we woke up in Hawick this morning, the weather was not as sunny as the forecast had promised. The sky was rather cloudy and it looked distinctly like it might have been raining overnight. It was dry now though, so before we set off towards Northumberland for our main adventure of the day we decided to have an early morning stroll around Hawick. When we first visited Hawick last year, we were told to visit Wilton Lodge Park, which is apparently one of the best parks in Scotland. It's certainly a lot bigger than our park in Nuneaton. Once you get to the edge of the park and turn around to walk back to the town, there are some lovely views of the hills behind Hawick. I particularly liked this view with the bright yellow gorse. The park was so large that we accidentally got 7,000 steps walking around it So I was quite pleased to have an excuse to sit down for a while, as we had a drive of around 50 miles to get to our destination in Northumberland. We were planning to drive to a place called Breamish Valley in the Northumberland National Park. It was a very scenic drive, first of all through the Scottish Borders to Kelso, and then south into Northumberland. The day was still quite cloudy though and the views were all rather hazy. We were looking for a car park called Bulby's Wood, from where a marked trail was supposed to start. The car park itself wasn't terribly well marked so it took a while to find it, but we got there in the end and parked on a large grassy field next to a river. The walk was a suggestion from the Northumberland National Park website called the Breamish Valley Hillfort Trail. It was only 4.5 miles, which sounded like a manageable distance, although it did start by leading straight uphill from the car park. By this time the sky had cleared up and it looked like it might actually turn into a sunny day We certainly felt rather warm as we continued to trek uphill. Before long the river and the car park looked very far beneath us. Very far indeed! At the top of the hill was the Breamish hillfort. The walk was supposed to feature the remains of five different hillforts. This one was by far the most impressive; I ultimately struggled to even figure out where the final two were It didn't feel like it would be worth doing the walk to see the hillforts. But it was certainly worth it to see the views The good news was that now we had got to the top of the first hill, the path flattened off for a bit and the walk became a bit easier. We followed a grassy path across the top of the hill until we got to the remains of the second hillfort. There really wasn't a lot to see here, but in the photo below you might just be able to make out some bumps in the ground, which apparently were the remains of the fort's ramparts. From here the path became steeper and narrower, leading downhill through a small gorge. The path was well signposted, so there was no chance of getting lost. From here we had another uphill climb to the top of a hill called Cochrane Pike. There was supposed to be a hillfort here too, but to be honest we couldn't see it There were great views in all directions though From the top of the hill we followed a nice grassy path again. As you can probably tell, it was a little bit breezy up here! After a while, our path began to take us downhill. We had walked across the top of the hill above the trees in this photo, before climbing down into the gorge and back up again, so we could see that we were now starting to swing back round in a circle towards the car park. The path downhill was quite steep at times, but it was definitely easier going down than up. At the bottom of the hill was a little stream which had to crossed by stepping stones. It required quite a big step! Then it was another grassy path to take us back towards the car. Somewhere here we missed another hillfort or two! Even if we didn't find all the hillforts, it was a fun walk with some great views We were quite thirsty by the time we had finished, so drove to the nearby town of Wooler to find something to drink. Wooler was a pretty little town. And it had some patriotic bunting! From there it was another hour or so to drive back to Hawick. Once I got back inside the apartment I could see that I look rather... pink! It seems to have been a mistake not to wear suncream today, although it definitely wasn't obvious when we woke up this morning that the day was going to be so bright and sunny!

We didn't have fixed plans for today, so once we'd had dinner last night we started to do a bit more research on the local area. In the course of doing so, I came across the Northumberland National Park website, which has a useful facility to search for walking routes based on distance and level of difficulty. I came up with a few possible options and we narrowed it down to the Drake Stone and Harbottle walk, which was described as being a moderate circular walk Northumberland is a huge county and so the starting point for the walk, a Forestry Commission car park just outside the village of Harbottle, was a 44 mile drive away. It was a very scenic drive though and the weather seemed to be holding up okay, with only a few spots of rain as we got closer to our destination. We parked the car and began following an uphill track, which was signposted as "Drake Stone". I was slightly unnerved when we passed a sign which seemed to imply that we were near a Ministry of Defence shooting range. The landscape was very scenic though, as we continued to climb higher. I maybe hadn't read the walk instructions attentively enough to appreciate quite how much uphill there was at the start of the walk, and so when we reached this cairn I thought perhaps we were at the top. I certainly felt out of breath enough for this to be the top It turned out there was still quite a way for us to go. Our destination, the Drake Stone, was the large rock on the top of this hill. The path upwards was quite narrow and a bit challenging in places... ...with lots of rocks to clamber over. But eventually we made it to the Drake Stone! Legend says that this large stone has supernatural healing powers. Our path led us around the stone and down towards a small lake. There were several other large rocks in the landscape. I had a great view from this one The route led us down towards the shore of the lake. The instructions for the walk warned us to stay on the path, because the shore of the lake was very boggy. As we walked we had great views back towards the Drake Stone on the horizon. I was slightly disconcerted by another warning sign as we began to leave the lake behind and climb uphill again, towards a forest. The path carried on straight through the forest for quite some time. At times it was a bit muddy underfoot, though there were often logs placed to help you find your way across. Some were easier to balance on than others! After a while the path began to lead quite steeply downhill. Sometimes a bit too steeply for my liking If this was a moderate walk then I was glad we hadn't chosen a difficult one! Once we left the forest behind us, the path widened out to a much easier trail. The views across the Northumberland national park were really beautiful. The path was leading us downhill, towards a village and the main road. A sign had warned that there was a bull in the field, but luckily we only met these rather placid cows. We crossed the main road and followed another path alongside the river Coquet. This part of the walk seemed far more relaxing As we strolled through the fields we realised we could see up to the Drake Stone, on top of a hill on the opposite side of the river. The final bit of the walk took us back across the river, to the small village of Harbottle. The weather was getting a bit cloudier by this point, but we just managed to sit outside in the beer garden of the local pub for a quick drink and then walk back up the road to the forest car park before any drops of rain fell Unfortunately, the weather forecast doesn't look too good for tomorrow, so this might be the end of our adventures in Northumberland for now. But we've really enjoyed visiting this part of the world again and I feel like we'll be back again at some point in the future

When we came to Northumberland for the first time last summer, one of the things we wanted to do was see some of Hadrian's Wall. We initially assumed this would be relatively easy to do, but it turned out to be surprisingly difficult and on our first trip we failed to track down any of it at all. On the way back from our Scottish islands trip in September, we were more successful and visited a section of the wall by Cawfields quarry. When I was researching things to do this weekend, I realised that the cottage we are staying in is really close to some of the sites along the wall and in particular to Housesteads Fort, so that was where we planned to visit today. Slightly confusingly, Housesteads Fort seems to be owned by the National Trust, managed by English Heritage and have a carpark owned by the Northumberland National Park. In practice, this means that you can get in for free with a National Trust card, but you need to pre-book your slot on the English Heritage website and pay £3 for parking before you leave. It doesn't seem to be the most popular of National Trust destinations; it only occurred to me to book a few days ago and there was still plenty of availability for mid-morning slots. We were booked to arrive at 11am, so we had a leisurely start to the morning, enjoying the local bacon, eggs and bread which the owner of the cottage had left for us. Then we jumped in the car for a short 4-mile drive towards the fort. We arrived, parked and found that it's actually a 0.5 mile walk from the carpark to the fort itself. A 0.5 mile walk up this hill We made it to the top, slightly out of breath, and found a small museum. It was open, but didn't look wildly exciting, so we decided to give it a miss. Instead we climbed slightly higher to the fort itself, which we entered through the south gate. Housesteads Fort was built in 124 AD. There are quite a lot of visible remains here, including houses, barracks and latrines. We also had a good view of Hadrian's Wall itself, leading up to the fort. Although it was a bank holiday weekend, it wasn't terribly busy here. And although I'd been expecting it to rain, the weather just about managed to stay dry. The National Trust website had suggested a walking route from the edge of the fort, but initially we struggled to find our way on to the path. In the end we had to climb down from the fort, go around this farm and back up again. We found the path eventually There were some beautiful views out across the countryside. We were right at the bottom edge of the Northumberland national park, so the views in this direction were towards the Pennines. On the opposite side, the path was just below Hadrian's wall. The path was a bit up and down at times. The sun had come out now and it actually felt quite warm walking in the sunshine. There were still some dark clouds on the horizon, though. After a while the path led downhill, alongside the wall. We passed a farm... ...and had a view down towards a small lake. It's hard to see in the photos, but on the left hand side of the lake are Hotbank Crags, topped by trees. Our route took us up to the top of the crags. It should have been a really scenic path. Unfortunately, there were lots of annoying black flies everywhere (all the black dots on the photo below are flies in front of my camera, not birds in the sky!) From the crags the path led steeply downhill, back alongside the wall. As we descended, we got a glimpse of what is apparently one of the most photographed trees in the UK. This is Sycamore Gap, although from this angle it wasn't completely clear how the location gets its name. Once we climbed further down and walked past the tree, it became clearer. The sycamore tree is situated in quite a dramatic dip - or gap - in the landscape We enjoyed the view for a while, before turning around to retrace our steps in the direction of Housesteads Fort. The weather got progressively colder and windier as we did so, and we only just made it back to the carpark before the first rain drops started to fall. It rained quite heavily for a while, so after a brief stop in the village of Haltwhistle to pick up some supplies, we headed back to the cottage for the rest of the afternoon. We were lucky that we managed to get such a scenic walk in before the weather turned

For this bank holiday last year, we had booked to go on a long weekend to Monaco. Well, really a long weekend in a place called Menton in France, because Monaco is way out of our budget, but the objective was to visit Monaco and add another small European country to our visited list. The pandemic meant that trip ultimately didn't happen, but this time last year EasyJet gave me the option to rebook the cancelled flights for May 2021. Back in May 2020, this seemed like an excellent idea; I didn't think for one minute that we wouldn't be back to normal life by May 2021! Little did I know Obviously life is not yet back to normal and my flights got cancelled for a second time. For a while I assumed we would just spend this weekend at home, but when restrictions started to ease a bit in the UK it became clear that it should at least be possible to book a self-catering stay within England. We enjoyed our trip to Northumberland so much last year, that we decided to take the opportunity to head up to the same part of the world again We didn't make a terribly early start this morning - and Northumberland is quite a long way away from Nuneaton - so today has predominantly been a day of travelling. When researching the route a few days ago I did, however, track down a place for us to make a stop around halfway through our journey. This rather unusual landscape is Brimham Rocks, a short diversion from the A1(M) in the general vicinity of Harrogate. I'd never heard of Brimham Rocks before, but the land is owned by the National Trust and we were able to use our membership cards to park for free in the carpark. We followed a path, signposted as a scenic route, through the rocks. Some of them were enormous, and there were some very unusual shapes. I wished I could better remember my geography lessons to understand how/why they'd eroded in this way The walk through the rocks wasn't a very long one, but that was fine because the weather was constantly on the verge of threatening rain. We did find a small picnic area, where we just about managed to eat our sandwiches before a shower hit. Luckily the shower wasn't too heavy, so we just got slightly damp as we took a different route back to the car. From the edge of the rocks there were some nice views out across the surrounding countryside. From Brimham Rocks we had another two hours or so of driving before we reached the cottage we are staying in, near a small place called Bardon Mill. It's really cosy inside There's a nice bedroom... ...and a well-equipped kitchen, where the owners have even left us some food (including local bacon) for breakfast By the time we'd checked in the weather had improved a bit, so we went out for a stroll to explore the neighbourhood. There are a few other houses around, but otherwise we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There were some beautiful views as we walked around the surrounding lanes. Even if the weather isn't forecast to be great this weekend, it looks like this is going to be a lovely place to stay

After our late finish last night, we didn't make a very early start to the day in Hawick. It was around 10am by the time we checked out and our first destination was the nearby town of Galashiels, where we stopped off at McDonalds for breakfast We had another fairly long day of driving ahead of us to get home. Our plan was to stop off in Northumberland and try to track down Hadrian's Wall. We'd actually tried to find part of Hadrian's Wall previously, when we were in Northumberland for August Bank Holiday, as a lady at our hotel had recommended that we go to Hexham to visit it. We'd driven through Hexham on the way back from Kielder Water one day and even followed a short driving route which was signposted as being a Hadrian's Wall tour, but failed to see anything which looked like a large wall! I think part of the problem was that there are lots of forts and other sites which you can visit along the length of the wall, but most of them are run by either English Heritage or the National Trust and in the current climate, you have to book your visits to both in advance. I'd thought about trying to fit in Hadrian's Wall when we were driving up through Northumberland at the start of this holiday, but when you've got a journey of more than four hours, it just felt too difficult to predict within which half hour interval we might possibly arrive at one of the sites. So ultimately we visited the waterfalls of High Force and Low Force instead. On the way back I was more confident of success though, having googled and found a car park at a place called Cawfields where the internet suggested that it was possible to park and walk to a part of the wall without having to pay to go inside anywhere. We put the postcode into the Sat Nav and off we went. It took around 90 minutes to get from Galashiels to Cawfields. The car park is owned by the Northumberland National Park and is located on the site of a former quarry. We paid £1 for parking and set off down a path in search of the elusive wall. After climbing up a slightly muddy track, we got our first glimpse. There was indeed a reasonable stretch of the wall here Finally, we'd found it A small path enabled us to walk alongside the wall for a while. We didn't want to go too far though, because we knew we still had quite a few hours in the car ahead of us to get home. Luckily there were no accidents or major delays today and we made it back home by 7pm after what has been a really exciting holiday

I had the first two weeks of September booked off work for what was originally supposed to be our Croatia-Montenegro-Albania adventure. Now that that obviously wasn't happening, we needed to come up with an alternative plan. We enjoyed our week in Scotland at the start of August so much that Scotland naturally came to the top of the list when were discussing places to go in the UK. In particular, we were conscious of the fact that, while we've explored a fair bit of the Scottish mainland now, we haven't yet been to any of the islands. I don't think we would ordinarily give up the opportunity to spend two weeks somewhere warm and sunny in favour of travelling to cold, wet and potentially midge-infested islands off the coast of Scotland, so if we were ever going to visit places like the Outer Hebrides, 2020 felt like the year to do it The Outer Hebrides were my initial plan and I purchased a Bradt guidebook for the region, but Tim came up with a more ambitious itinerary which would involve fitting in the Shetland islands too, plus a brief visit to Orkney. The way things are at the moment it was difficult to know whether it was a good idea to go ahead and make bookings or not, but with about two weeks to go we decided to take the plunge. Nothing dramatic has gone wrong between now and then (touch wood!) so this morning we were able to set off as planned on the first leg of our journey, towards Northumberland. It really doesn't feel like very long since we were last in Northumberland We had about five hours of driving ahead of us today, so last night I tried to come up with a plan for where we could break the journey. When we drove up to Hawick at the start of August, we stopped at a forest near Richmond, which felt like a good mid-point to the journey. Looking at a map of the same general area last night, I came across an idea for a walk we could do which would involve seeing two separate waterfalls. A Google Image search suggested that both would be more impressive than the rather uninspiring Dog Falls which we visited on our way back from Glen Strathfarrar a few weeks ago. We left home around 10.45 in the end and, with a stop for petrol and another for McDonalds coffee, it was around 3pm when we arrived at the Bowlees visitor centre, where I'd read there was a big car park. It turned out to be a "donate and display" car park, which was an interesting idea, although we weren't able to donate very much towards our parking ticket due to an extreme lack of coins! Leaving the car park behind, we crossed a bridge over as small river and then followed a footpath through a field. It was only a matter of minutes before we turned a corner and got a view of the first waterfall, Low Force. I had read that this was the smaller of the two waterfalls, so I was impressed by how big it was. It reminded me a little bit of the Goðafoss waterfall in Iceland, on a smaller scale. Although all the water we saw in Iceland was beautifully clear, and this water was a rather murky shade of brown! The water was flowing impressively fast, though! Once we'd finished admiring Low Force, the path led us across a narrow bridge called Wynch Bridge. It was built in 1830 and there were signs up saying that only one person should walk on it at a time, which didn't really inspire confidence We made it across though and once on the other side, the path led us to another great viewpoint of the falls From there the path led us along the side of the falls. There were some really interesting rock formations... ...and some beautiful countryside views too The route was a little bit rocky and muddy at times, but there was a clear path to follow. After a couple of miles we arrived at a viewpoint for the second waterfall. This is High Force, with a drop of 21m. Definitely more impressive than Dog Falls It wasn't a circular route, so once we'd seen the waterfall we needed to retrace our steps. That wasn't a great hardship though as there were some lovely views on the way back too. Before long we were back at Low Force and ready to set off on the remainder of our journey. There were another couple of hours of driving between where we were in Teesdale and the hotel we were staying at in Northumberland. The Sat Nav decided to take us on a scenic but narrow road across the Pennines, where at one point I had to get out of the car to open and close a gate. It then tried to take us down an even smaller road which required crossing a ford, but we drew the line at that and managed to navigate an alternative way back to the main road! We hadn't had any lunch, so once we crossed into Northumberland we found a village pub to stop and have dinner. By that stage we were only 30 miles or so away from the hotel where we're staying tonight in the village of Crookham, which is close to the Scottish border. I was just expecting a standard bedroom... ...so was impressed to find that we've got a little living room as well It's been a long day of driving, but it's nice to be on holiday again and I'm feeling excited about the rest of the trip

We enjoyed our trip to Bamburgh a few weeks ago so much that we knew we wanted to return and go inside the castle properly if we were ever in this part of the world again. When we booked this last minute bank holiday trip to Northumberland, one of the first things I did was to go on the Bamburgh castle website and book tickets for today. They've got quite a good system where you can pay online for a specific day and then enter the castle at any time on that day. It's a lot more convenient that the National Trust system of being tied to a particular arrival time! Although we didn't need to be at the castle by a specific time, we made a fairly early start this morning, arriving not long after the castle opened at 10am. I'd also been able to pay for parking in the castle car park online. Just stepping outside of the car in the car park, the views were already pretty impressive. We could see down towards the village of Bamburgh in one direction... ...and up towards the castle in the other. As you can see, we didn't have very far to walk from the car park to the castle entrance. Unfortunately it was so sunny that it was a bit difficult to smile for a photo We walked up past a poster depicting the history of the castle through the ages, which was about as far as we'd been able to get last time without paying. This time we were able to continue through the archway into the castle grounds. The great thing about being here just after opening was that there were very few other people around. We could see a few other visitors as we strolled around the ramparts, but for a Bank Holiday Monday it was still very quiet There were some lovely views out to sea. And some great views of the castle itself. As we walked through the grounds we could see this strange round tower in the distance. It turns out that this used to be Bamburgh Castle's windmill, built for the local villagers to use. Today it doesn't have any sails, but it was still interesting to see Having walked as far as the mill, we could look back towards the castle keep. From this side of the castle we could also look back down to the village. Last time we'd been here people had been playing cricket on the village green, but today it looked quite peaceful We walked past the clock tower... ...and could see that the grounds were starting to get a bit more crowded now. It was still far from overrun with people though It was time to go inside the castle now. In one of the first rooms we came across this beautiful model of the castle. The interior of the castle was very grand. There was a very good one-way system in place around the rooms and all visitors had to wear face masks. It worked pretty well, though it was slightly frustrating if you got stuck behind people who were looking at every single exhibit in a room very slowly and you had to try and stay appropriately socially distanced from them until you could find an opportunity to overtake I think we're probably bigger fans of exploring the outsides of castles rather than the insides! Once we emerged into the sunlight again we had some more beautiful views out across the sea. The coast is really lovely here, with lots of little sanddunes. That was the end of our castle tour, so we set off down a little path towards the village. We wanted to get some views of the castle from the village green. It was definitely worth the climb down From here you can really see how long the castle is. Once we'd finished admiring the views, it was time to walk back towards the car park. We climbed back up the little path to the side of the castle and retrieved our car. We had a long 5-hour drive back to Nuneaton ahead of us, which wasn't helped when we got stuck in some Bank Holiday traffic on the A1, but it was worth it; we've had a really nice weekend, staying in some amazing places, and it was especially fun to have the opportunity to visit Bamburgh properly today

After I'd finished the blog last night we went out for a stroll around the hotel grounds. It was starting to get a little bit dark, but it was still a really lovely place to walk around. The interior of the hotel is really beautiful too. There are some gorgeous stained glass windows. And when we came down to breakfast this morning we found the breakfast rooms were rather grand too! We had the breakfast room almost to ourselves, so there were no concerns about social distancing! Ordinarily there would have been a breakfast buffet, but we'd been asked to fill out a checklist to choose the food we wanted the night before. The problem was that with not being about to see the food as you would at a buffet, it was difficult to know how much to order. I ordered a croissant, for example, expecting to get something fairly small, and ended up with one of the biggest croissants I've ever had All the food was beautiful though, and the benefit of having such a large breakfast was that we definitely weren't going to need any lunch. Before we set off for the day's adventures, we had another walk around the hotel grounds in the sunshine. It felt a bit like we'd woken up and had breakfast in a National Trust property Our plan for today was to drive to Kielder Water. This decision was mainly based on having driven past a sign to Kielder Water when we were on our way to Scotland a few weeks ago and vaguely remembering having learned about it in geography lessons We hadn't done a lot of research for this trip - partly because I've spent most of my free time recently planning another trip to Scotland (plus Tim hasn't had any free time!) - and we weren't able to do much research this morning, because there's no Wi-Fi at the hotel. So we had a quick look at the map, chose a place which looked like it was in the general vicinity of Kielder Water and put it in the Sat Nav. This would have worked fine, except for the fact that there were some roadworks we didn't know about. Our route - somewhat surprisingly - quickly took us out of England and across the border into Scotland, passing through the towns of Kelso and Jedburgh. At some point we turned off onto a small road which was signposted Kielder Water, but after travelling down it for the best part of ten miles we found that it was closed for roadworks and we couldn't actually get as far as Kielder! So we were forced to retrace our steps and attempt to approach Kielder from another angle. It didn't really matter, because the countryside we were driving through was all so beautiful. Eventually we found a main road and passed back from Scotland into England. We paused at a viewpoint on the border to take some photos. It was a wonderfully sunny day today and we could see for miles. Shortly after crossing the border we finally saw a turn off signposted for Kielder Water. Excellent! The sign said something about a forest road, which sounded scenic... It turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than we had expected! Kielder Forest Drive is a 12-mile gravel road which leads through a remote part of the Kielder forest. It's apparently one of the highest roads in England, reaching a peak of 457 metres at Blakehopenick. There's a slightly unusual structure built to mark the highest point. It was very scenic though! Driving on a gravel road meant that it felt a bit like being in Iceland - and our car got rather dusty in the process - but the views as we travelled along were definitely worth it. As we reached the end of the forest road we emerged into a much busier, touristy area at a place called Kielder Castle. To be honest, the castle didn't look very impressive and was mostly obscured by food wagons! We parked the car in the hope that we would be able to find a path to walk to Kielder Water itself. Parking turned out to be more difficult than expected, because the car park machines only appeared to take coins. Eventually, after consulting a forest ranger, we managed to find one that took cards and we were sorted! There were numerous marked trails starting from around the castle and we followed one of them for a mile or so, through a forest and along by a river. There was no sign of Kielder Water though, and the path was a bit muddy, so after a while we turned around and walked back towards the castle. Rather than retrace our steps along the forest road, we turned onto a main road which looked like it ought to take us around the edge of the lake. After a bit more driving, we finally managed to find Kielder Water Kielder Water is the largest man-made reservoir in the UK. Work began on building the reservoir in 1975, being completed in 1981. It took two years for the valley to fill with water. We found a lakeside path and set off for a stroll. It's possible to walk around the entire reservoir, but the path is around 27 miles so we didn't fancy it today! We had a good walk though, and after the rain of the past few days it was really nice to be outside in the sunshine. It definitely looked like there had been a lot of rain here; at one point, we came across this flooded road. We took that as a sign to retrace our steps and walk back towards the car park. Our breakfast had kept us going for a long time but we were starting to feel hungry now, we were on the look out for somewhere to get dinner. Our route back towards the hotel took us over the border into Scotland again and we stopped in the town of Jedburgh, which was the largest place we'd driven through today so seemed like the best bet to find restaurants. We'd actually been to Jedburgh once before, during our 2010 road trip around Scotland. Unfortunately, that day it was pouring with rain and we ended up having a rather mediocre lunch in a cafe attached to a woollen mill. It turns out that on that occasion we had missed the town's main sight; the ruins of Jedburgh abbey. We found an Indian restaurant which was open and had a nice meal, which was only slightly marred by some rather noisy drunk locals on the opposite side of the restaurant. Despite that, we've had a lot of fun today and really enjoyed exploring some more of Northumberland

Our original plan for this weekend was to go to Luxembourg. We had visited once previously, on a day trip from an Esperanto event back in 2009, and we didn't either remember it very well or have any decent photos. But then, of course, Covid-19 happened and our flights to Luxembourg were cancelled by BA quite some time ago. We didn't initially make any alternative plans, but when we were driving back from Scotland a few weeks ago, we were pleasantly surprised by what a beautiful county Northumberland seemed to be. Tim did a bit of research on booking.com and found a nice hotel with a vacancy in a location very close to the Scottish border. To break up the journey a bit, we decided to travel partway on the Friday evening, stopping overnight in Yorkshire. We didn't end up setting off quite as early as we'd hoped on Friday, so it was already dark by the time we arrived at the Hazlewood Castle hotel where we were staying. Once we'd checked in we could just see enough to be able to tell that we'd have a lovely view out the window in the morning. Sure enough, when we woke up in the morning we did After breakfast we set off for a stroll around the grounds. It wasn't the sunniest of days, but it was still really pretty here. And we could actually see a little bit of blue sky behind the hotel The hotel is set in really lovely grounds. And the building itself is really impressive too. It was definitely a nice way to start the morning We didn't have fixed plans for the rest of the day, but we knew we weren't far away from Harrogate - a town we've never visited before - so we decided to make that our first stop. It looked really pretty as we were driving through it, but then once we'd managed to park and started strolling around we found it quite busy and difficult to stay socially distanced from people. It seems to be a really green town though, with lots of parks and open spaces. There were some really beautiful flower displays... ...and we also found this slightly strange tree stump which looked like a replica of the Eiffel Tower, among other things, had been carved into it. The sky was getting cloudier as we walked around and it felt like it might start to rain soon, so we decided to head back to the car. Our next destination was York, a journey of around 30 minutes. York is beautiful but wow, if I thought Harrogate was busy, York took busyness to a whole other level! We mostly kept our masks on while walking around, because staying the right distance away from people was really difficult. Especially on narrow streets like the Shambles! We made our way down to the river, where things were a bit less chaotic. The water level looked really high though! We had lunch in a wine bar which was nice and quiet, although it did have markers on the walls to show where flood waters had come up to in previous years. Some of them were over our heads! After lunch it was back to the car for the rest of our journey northwards. I've always thought of York as being quite a northern town but we had another three hours to drive before we reached our final destination of the Tillmouth Park hotel where we are staying for the next couple of nights. The hotel is really lovely For some reason we got our room upgraded, so it's much bigger than I was expecting and we have windows on both sides. And the view out the windows is really pretty Fingers crossed the weather is going to be dry tomorrow and we'll be able to explore Northumberland, while avoiding people