As the Wind Blows

What do Newcastle and Liverpool have in common? No idea? Neither do I. One is near the east coast; the other is near the west coast of the UK, yet I kept calling Newcastle, Liverpool for the whole trip. So in the future if I ever say I went to Liverpool, you’ll know I’m actually referring to Newcastle. (I’m pretty sure I’m never been to Liverpool in Sydney either, though I have driven through Newcastle in Australia at least once.)

I love Newcastle! Not only because it has a bridge that looks like Sydney Harbour, but because it’s fulfils my criteria for a great place to live as mentioned in an earlier entry. It also has plenty of shops, cafes, at least one bar on every street we walked down, crazy streets and walkways and it has a busy yet relaxed vibe. I realised I’ve described several places as being relaxed, but until you’ve experienced the hectic and not very courteous Londoners who rush about on the tube during peak hour, you can’t appreciate the relaxed vibe that other cities have.

We also stopped by Hadrian’s Wall, or at least the place where it used to be. What’s Hadrian’s wall you ask? Well it’s a wall that some Roman dude built across the Great Britain from the east coast to the west coast of the UK (no doubt also confusing Liverpool with Newcastle and vice versa) in order to keep other people out. The wall itself no longer stands, but the tourism people have kindly reconstructed part of the wall so we can all get an idea of what it would’ve been like. I think when I live in a house with a garden, I will also reconstruct Hadrian’s wall and charge people to come and see it.

They’ve also excavated the site where an old Roman fort used to stand and there is a Roman Bath house to wander through if you fancy. The museum was a pretty interesting mainly because of the dress ups and games that were there and the mini docu-drama on what it was like living in Roman times.  It’s great hearing ancient Romans speak with a cockney accent!

At this point in our trip we had learnt a great deal about English history from Roman times to the 20th century. Next we headed over the border to Scotland, land of the Loch Ness monster and Hagis.