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UK Travels: Hiking and biking through lovely countryside

Lots of stone walls, stone barns, stone castles everywhere in England and Scotland. And not as much sprawl as in Sussex County, Delaware. They keep their developments around each community so urban is urban and rural is rural.
dennis_forney
October 3, 2016
Fields of barley bordered by hedge rows. The hedges harbored lots of songbirds and grouse and pheasants. But other than a few squirrels, one or two rabbits, one hawk and a dead mouse, we saw a remarkably small amount of wildlife over the course of two weeks. Not as wild in the UK as in the US.
Elaborate stone manor houses, looking like small castles to me, popped into view here and there when we rounded bends or topped a hill. This and the previous two photos are from the countryside north of Corbridge, west of New Castle, not far from the River Tyne.
Sheep are a constant all over the UK. White-faced, black-faced and some black wooled sheep.
Sometimes you get a little mixed up when the path is not as evident as you’d like it to be. In those cases you depend on friendly people like Jenny here, a free spirit who pointed us in the right direction across a pasture. When you stopped at the end of the day in a Bed and Breakfast, it was good form to take off your boots or shoes. It was tough not to step in cow and sheep hockey when you cross so many pastures.
Stingweed was even more pervasive than cow and sheep hockey. I think they call it nettle in UK but whatever it’s called, if you brush against it with bare arm or bare leg you’ll know it. You can’t see the tiny needles but trust me, they’re there.
There’s lots of ups and downs along Hadrian’s Wall as it snakes across northern England from east to west. One traveler told us he raed an exhibit that indicated that Hadrian and his people, back in 150 AD or so, figure out that two tectonic plates met in this area. The good ground and resources like coal seemed to be on the southern tectonic plate so Hadrian and his officers didn’t see much sense in fighting over the less desirable land to the north. The plates heaved and created great crags, or cliffs, where they met which created natural barriers in some areas. Hadrian’s men built the wall along that general alignment to delineate the northernmost border of the Roman empire at that time. Hiking atop the crags offers great views of the countryside north and south.
Hiking along the wall. Out of 70 or 80 original miles, there are about 10 miles of wall still in existence. The rest of the rocks have been taken through the centuries to use for houses and walls by people living on either side of it, much as stones from the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse were salvaged, after it fell in 1926, to be used for fireplaces and siding in some instances in Sussex County, here.
A pretty pathway leads through thick green pasture on one of the many downsides of the Hadrian’s Wall path. A significant portion of the walk passes through a national park known for its bright nighttime skies unpolluted by artificial light.

In England and Scotland we walked and cycled through lots of beautiful countryside.  A centuries-old tradition, and law, of public walkways across private lands gives endless possibilities for long walks between towns and villages or loops starting in front of an old stone pub, out through fields and woods, alongside creeks and burns - what they call creeks in England - and then circling back to the pub to take care of the thirst the walk has created.  Plus, when you’re in the pub, you can share the brilliant ideas that have coursed through your brain charged by the oxygen-rich blood brought on by the outdoors and exercise. Here are some photographs of the countryside we passed through over the course of several days.  All of that walking and thinking, talking and drinking will make you feel young and keep you that way. And I say drinking.  Most of what we drank in the pubs pulled from hand-pumped taps was a a variety of ales with almost all of them averaging about 3.8 percent alcohol. At that level, I figured I was simply quenching my thirst and replacing essential nutrients, not clouding the brilliant thoughts.

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