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Hadrian's Wall People kept telling us. how unusual this hot weather was and we just kept grinning. We gladly took dry weather any day over the alternative. A woman told us this was the best summer since 1976. So England had summer every nineteen years. We stopped at Hutton-in-the-forest to gape at some poor country boy's home; a massive affair surrounded by flower gardens and a spacious field of various trees. Then we continued to Plumpton for breakfast at Bridge End Park. The roller coaster country roads continued. Twenty percent grades became the norm. I intended to laugh at the "steep" twelve percent grades when I returned home. On a country lane Sharon found a creek with a deep hole and jumped in. "Coming in?" she coaxed. It had already been hot and muggy since nine-thirty this morning. "Only if you'll take off all your clothes," I fooled. "Oh, you wouldn't come in even then," she comprehended. I agreed, and went back to ogle from the bridge while eating a jam-filled doughnut. At Brampton, outside a restaurant, we met four Norwegian cyclists. They were on two weeks' vacation and planned to cycle from Newcastle to northern Wales (originally through the Lake District), over to Dublin, up the east coast of Ireland to Belfast, over to Scotland and back to Newcastle. Highly ambitious, I thought, even for super cyclists. One woman already sported a tensor bandage on her knee and the other woman made Mama Cass look petite. Her weight would be like commandeering a tandem uphill with only one pedaling. The men were continuing to Wales, now bypassing the Lake District, while the women loaded their bikes onto a just arrived bus. They decided to take trains and buses where need be and rent a car when they landed in Scotland to drive back to Newcastle so they could catch their flight home in time. We headed for Hadrian's wall, marking the northern territorial edge of the Roman Empire circa 100 AD. When the Romans built something, they built it to last. Forts still stood, as well as, mile castles and long sections of the wall, originally constructed up to twenty-one feet high. The road punished us with roller coaster hills. Unfortunately, loaded touring bikes didn't coast far. Even going full-throttle downhill, I soon huffed in my lowest Granny gear to struggle up the other side. A new road sign appeared: Severe Dip. The trough between the downhill and the start of the uphill was so abrupt several grooves of excavated asphalt from car undercarriages had gouged out pavement. Rubber marked the spot where car drivers suddenly braked, realizing they were going to continue straight into the pavement. At Housestead we viewed a section of the wall and a Roman fort ruin. Our pamphlet stated this was the most dramatic vantage spot, as the wall scurried over hills and crags. It was an impressive feat of engineering. We set up our tent behind the information center. The toilets were deluxe with hot water and stayed unlocked all night. Two German cyclists, sleeping bags thrown on the ground, slept beside us. Risky behavior in England, I thought, as it rained anywhere at anytime. |
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