Hadrian's Wall: Birdoswald

After camping at the holiday park at Strathclyde, we finally left Scotland the next day, humming "Scotland the Brave" triumphantly as we entered Cumbria. We loved Scotland, and it is certainly one of the places to which we shall return. Especially when they get the weather fixed.

Once in Cumbria, we turned east into Northumberland and another one of those sites one always hopes to see one day, Hadrian's Wall. We toured the remains of the fort at Birdoswald, then camped there for the evening.

“All quiet on the northern front,” observes Centurion Marcus, “no barbarian Scots 
nor Picts in sight. They must all be up in the Highlands, flinging or tossing their 
cabers or hunting haggis. Damn them. Perhaps I should transfer back to the eastern 
front. Dacean weather is sunny and warm, the Danube girls are fair, the Bulgar 
food is great. And Alaric the Goth's emissaries have made peaceful overtures to 
the Emperor, I hear.”

Model of the fort as it would have appeared in 3rd century AD

The granary

South entrance

The Wall, looking east toward the Caulfield Crags

Glasgow Cathedral

Glasgow Cathedral/St. Mungo's

Practically all the great buildings of Europe have scaffolding

on them, perpetually, but this is the first such notice I have

ever seen

Nave interior...12th century, small but very

handsome and straightforward

Memorial to Reformation martyrs in the crypt

...ironically, the St. Mungo Center for World

Religions and Arts, or somesuch, which we

visited, is next door, and scarcely notices the

intolerance, inhumanity, brutality, etc; oh well,

Mungo is my favorite character from Blazing

Saddles

Glasgow

Next day we took the bus into Glasgow and spent the day wandering the centre city sights.

George Square, ground zero, with inevitable

Walter Scott monument

Main drag

Glasgow Tower

Merchant Square--pretty much what Glasgow was all about

Wellington monument...outside the modern

art museum

Dr. Livingstone, I presume

Oldest building in Glasgow

Outside city hall

Just in case you need to know how long a foot is (we don't

need no stinking meters)

Police sub-station

Burrell Collection

After Falkirk, we drove on to Glasgow, home of Glaswegians (love that term), straight to the Burrell Collection, in Pollok Park, south of the city, a big beautiful metro park, with forest, trails, playing fields, etc. We spent most of the rest of the day touring the Burrell, which, idiosyncratic as it is, we liked very much. It is one man's collection--a wealthy Glasgow ship-owner who died in 1944. He left the collection to the city, but with the stipulation that the museum housing it cater to the contents and that it be in an outdoorsy location. It took Glasgow 50 years to work this out, but what resulted is very fine indeed. The strengths of the collection are late medieval and early Renaissance northern European, but also tapestry, Degas, and antiquities, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Chinese. Burrell also asked that three rooms from his castle/home be displayed.  We camped in a corner of the park's car park and enjoyed a quiet night.

Large and purpose-built, much of the Burrell's conservation work goes on right 
out in the open; when she heard us snapping pix, this conservator came over 
and explained what she was doing...

Typical doorway...from a castle or great house Burrell collected

Typical room display, painting, furniture, tapestry, carpet...

Drawing room from Burrell's castle

The multi-tasking wife, one of our favorite tapestries

Evidently Rembrandt painted enough of these for every 
museum to have at least one...

A Chinese Buddha, displayed against the giant windows 
and forest outside

Degas' portrait of his friend, the writer Duranty

With the royalties from L'Assomoir, Zola bought a country house which his  close 
personal bud Degas also painted (two coats!)

Falkirk Wheel

In 1822 the Scots dug a canal linking the River Clyde on the west with the 
Firth of Forth on the east, thus making a waterway connection across the 
island. The canal was in use for a few decades, then fell into disuse as railroads

connected the whole nation. In the late 1990s, they decided to reopen the canal, 
for tourism and economic development in central Scotland, and part of the 
reopening was the creation of the Falkirk Wheel, which replaces several of the 
original locks on the canal. I'm not sure whether it's an engineering marvel or 
just a big gadget, but it was something we have been wanting to see in 
operation. The poster photo gives some idea of how it works (one boat 
counterweighs the others). Above, the Canal, with the Wheel in the background.

Interestingly, the train goes under the canal

Closer-up of the Wheel

The poster photo

And they light it up at night...cool

Glencoe, Stirling, and Bannockburn

We spent two uneventful days at the Glen Nevis visitor center, not bothering anyone, the alternating squalls and gales affording me the opportunity to catch up on the blog and to rest up from the Ben. We even got a few river-walks in between the showers and deluges. Tuesday afternoon, however, after dutifully paying our "donate and display" fee, we noticed they had erected a "no overnight parking" sign. The nerve! So, as the sun set, feeling a bit dejected, we pulled up stakes, drove through Fort Bill and down (up?) the loch a couple miles until we found a more hospitable, unsigned, lay-by.

Wednesday we drove through continued rain and wind to Glencoe, checked out what we were missing at the visitor center--it is a marvelous hill-walking area--and then drove on through the squalls, skirting the Trussochs, the QE2 national forest, to the ancient capital, Stirling, and its historic castle. Stirling occupies a sort of geographic narrows in Scotland and through its history has been a highly contested place. After doing the castle tour and the associated Argyll House, we drove out to Bannockburn, the site of the Scots' greatest victory over the English, in 1314. And from there we drove on to Falkirk and the Falkirk Wheel, where we presently are parked. We'll see the Wheel tomorrow morning and then head on to Glasgow.

Glencoe, in the rain; people go walking in this?

Stirling Castle walls

Royal residences of various James, Marys, et al.

Tapistry artisans at the Castle are recreating the Unicorn series 
from the Met's Cloisters, to decorate the Chapel--quite a treat 
to see them in such vibrant colors; the work is taking nearly ten 
years

The Rood, where important coronations occurred

The Argyll House, another 17th century aristocratic abode I couldn't get into except 
for noticing...

This woman's huge right bicept; too much caber-tossing?

The Mel Gibson, I mean, Willam "Braveheart" Wallace memorial, from the Castle

Robert the Bruce statue at Bannockburn 

Ben Nevis, Again

Sunday, September 20, I climbed Ben Nevis, again. I left the camper at 8AM, summited at 1:24, and got back to the camper at 4:34, a bit slower than my 1989 pace (5PM to 12:30AM, summer solstice, full moon, according to Vicki's 1989 diary). Oh well. Getting old is a bitch. The first third of the way was in hopeful sunlight, with great vistas, then, turning up the canyon past the Red Burn, things fell apart, with the semi-permanent cloud cover, a veritable hurricane of wind and cold rain. Like Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, the Ben is a magnet for foul weather. At 4,406 feet, it is the highest mountain in the British Isles. I have climbed it twice now and never seen any but its lower slopes. 355 cloudy days per year. This was one of them. Vicki suggests I try again in 20 years, possibly on the vernal equinox.

Keats' thoughts on his ascent, in August, 1818, are of some comfort:

"Upon the top of Nevis blind in mist!
I look into the Chasms and Shroud
Vaporous doth hide them; just so much I wist
Mankind do know of Hell..."

My sentiments exactly. Same wist entirely.

While I was away, she reorganized the camper and did the wash and other such domestic things. Also read some of the guide books. The record ascent/descent of Ben Nevis, as of 2006, she informs me, is 85 minutes.

After a night in the campground, we moved down the road to the free parking of the Glen Nevis visitor center. Dinner for me was of well-deserved fried eggs and, the box said, “haggis neeps & tatties.” (Is this like “eats shoots and leaves”?) I enjoyed the haggis neeps immensely, and the tatties too; or maybe I enjoyed the haggis immensely and the neeps and tatties too. It was all washed down by some great-tasting McEwan's Export ale. It also helped tremendously that I did not read the haggis label until well after dinner was over.

After-edit: this is Ben Nevis, from the south

Very famous castle we passed on the way to Fort William

Lower slopes of the Ben the evening before, from the

campground; I was hopeful of actually seeing the mountain

this time

Some other mountain across the Glen; nice day so far...

Campground

Fort William below; still nice

Then things fell apart; me, in the summit hurricane, hoping

my pack wouldn't blow away

Summit structures, an old observatory and hotel, now a

shelter; the Victorians had some interesting ideas about

where to put hotels

Sign I should have read at the visitor center,

especially the part about 355 cloudy days per

year; Denali is not that bad! But I probably

would have done it anyway...

Vicki adds:

Ft. William, Scotland, September 21, 2009
It is raining like crazy so we are just spending the day (and 2 nights) in the parking lot at the foot of UK's highest mountain--Ben Nevis. Mark climbed it yesterday and only one hour slower than he did 20 years ago, so not bad. I decided that a 4,000 ft climb on a gravel path with rain guaranteed for half the 9 hours was not to my liking so I did the wash and reorganized the camper.

We have been in the camper four months now and are really quite satisfied with it. It is small--21ft. RoadTrek Adventurous--but well laid out and after spending 6 months living out of a suitcase and then 3 1/2 weeks in Ireland in a tent, it feels quite luxurious. I am sure we would have not felt quite the same if we had moved directly from our 2,000 sq ft house on five acres!

Scotland has been cool and wet but today (and the rest of the week) have been the only all day rains. We loved the Orkney Islands and also the Isles of Lewis and Harris. They were bleak and desolate but packed with prehistoric sites--Mark's blog will have all the details and pictures. We have had plenty of opportunities to free camp so that has helped with the budget.

Groceries are also very reasonably priced--I know we are not spending more than we would have at home and we are eating out much less. That will change when we get to France and Italy, but right now we haven't really missed it. I do buy a lot of semi prepared meals. The grocery stores have a tremendous variety of Indian, Chinese, etc. meals to just heat up and they mark them down to half price just before dinner time. I can just switch on the generator and then we can use the microwave. Generators aren't allowed in most campgrounds as they expect you to plug in--but we usually don't need the electric so why pay the extra $5-6 a day for an electric hookup? Propane has been easy to get, except in northern Scotland. We are using about 1 tank a month right now--about $35. It runs the refrigerator, hot water heater, generator, and the furnace. We pretty much use the furnace every morning and on and off during evenings. At night we have a DC electric mattress pad with dual controls that makes sleeping quite comfortable and so far we haven't had to even use it much as the travelsac sleeping system we have is warm enough. So as long as we can find propane we can manage our energy needs pretty easily.