Northern England

There’s not too much to write about the week and a half we spent in the north of England. Mainly because we didn’t do much during that time. We had arranged to stay with some family friends in a small village called Stone, but before there we spent 2 days slowly making our way to Hardian’s Wall. Whilst we appreciated the historical significance of the wall, and had been very keen to see it after our love of Rome, it was somewhat underwhelming. Only a few blocks remained where we saw it, however we are glad that we made the effort to go and have a look.

After Hadrian’s Wall, we made our way south, passing through some nice little towns and villages before reaching Stone. Our friends greeted us with fantastic meals, generous quantities of wine, and stories of when I was a child…which Sam seemed to thoroughly enjoy! We spent about 5 days in their house and explored the village and surrounds, deciding to see more of a smaller portion rather than spread ourselves too thinly.

We realised during this time that we had just about reached the end in terms of mentally taking in all of our travelling destinations. It had been 9 months, and we knew that we were not quite going to make a year. Financially and physically we could quite easily, but we were finding that we were becoming a little numb with some of the new things that we were seeing. Our next stop was Belgium, where we again would stay with some family friends. Once there we would be back to hotels and trains, so perhaps that would freshen our minds up a bit. But after we had dropped the car back in London, put on our backpacks for the first time in 6 weeks and got on the Eurostar to Brussels, we knew that our freshened minds would not last long. We were becoming a bit like old batteries…quick to charge, but quick to drain as well. Belgium would be the last country for this trip…