We've got a lot of ground to cover today, lots of miles to travel before we sleep. It is starting to get warmer as we are heading south (hallelujah)...still drizzling a bit but at least we'd put the snow behind us. As we drove past the city of Carlisle we heard on the radio that the epidemic was still spreading rapidly and that in the area around Carlisle it was especially bad. We often saw columns of smoke on the horizon and where Daniel and Becky insisted on taking a Pollyanna sort of view about them, Awanna and I have a more solemn explanation...something we were confronted with nightly on the news now, we suspect it's the farmers burning the the carcasses of their infected, dead sheep. It's all terribly sad.
The picture below is of the front gate to a farm with the "Do Not Enter" sign prominently displayed along with the obligatory pan of disinfectant to step into for your feet along with a pump sprayer to hit whatever else may need disinfecting.
Late in the day we now found ourselves in the vicinity of Hadrian's wall on the Scotish-English border. We were faced with finding somewhere to spend the night in an area both unfamiliar to us and in the fading daylight. This is where our policy of "winging it" and not making reservations in advance came back to bite us. After a long day spent pent up in the car we spent more long hours driving around back, country roads, frantically poring over the guidebooks and maps trying to find a hotel in this very rural area. Our crew was getting awfully tired and I suspect a wee bit tired of each other's company. Nothing like being tightly packed together into a small car ALL DAY LONG to frazzle one's nerves a bit. FINALLY we found a somewhat pricy but adequate room at a inn called the "White Lion" in the little town of Brampton and spent the night. One good thing that can be said about the White Lion is that they had a most excellent collection of Scotches at their bar. After a somewhat mediocre supper we proceeded to what had now become our standard evening's habit of lying in bed, watching the BBC and discussing the next day's possibilities.
Another FEB (burp), packed up and headed out towards Hadrian's Wall which here at the U.K.'s narrowest point bisects the island. The countryside here is just gorgeous. Just out of Brampton we suddenly came to one of those absolutely lovely English picture postcard places. An old stone bridge built in 1724 (along with 2 others now long gone) and Lanercost Priory (closed). We got out took a few pictures (below) but were denied the paths along the oh-so-tempting-looking river because of the outbreak.
We arrived at Hadrian's Wall (picture below) only to be faced with more "Closed due to Foot and Mouth" signs...a shame and we vow to return during a future trip when we will be allowed to walk it (or at least part of it). One can't really get a feel for the wall without being able to walk it and "walking the wall" had been one of our major "wants" when planning this trip. In the meantime we honored the government's attempts to stop this awful disease's spread.
Daniel wheeled us out onto the M9 ("M" roads are similar to the freeways we have out here in the western U.S.) and we head west for the north of Wales and the ancient walled city of Conwy.
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