We head northwards from the North York Moors and travelled to Snitter, a little village near Rothbury, on the outskirts of Northumberland National Park. We stayed at Silverdale Farm House, a lovely little B&B with ducks and chickens that the kids were allowed to feed in the morning. They also had a border terrier and, at the time, I was absolutely adamant that we wouldn't get a dog because I didn't want the added responsibility and wasn't sure it would fit into our lifestyle. Little did we know that I was going to start warming to the idea within a week and that within a fortnight we would be considering a border terrier as our ideal family pet! Simon still can't quite believe that I've come round to wanting a dog! Anyway, I digress... The Sill Our first stop in Northumberland National Park was The Sill: the UK's National Landscape Discovery Centre. It is a visitor centre with a focus on the importance of landscapes and includes an exhibition space and YHA hostel. It had only recently opened when we visited, replacing the old National Park Centre, and we visited it in part because the grant-making charity that I work for supported its construction and I was curious to see it. The exhibition was excellent (and Eve, in particular, loved it). Housesteads & Hadrian's Wall We decided to spend some of our time in Northumberland mixing the outdoors with history so after our stop at The Sill, we visited Housesteads Roman Fort and from there, hiked along Hadrian's Wall to Steel Rigg following a National Trust route. The walk had some amazing scenery and took us to Sycamore Gap, made famous in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner. A word of warning on this route: the return journey on the north side of the Wall is a little unclear once you get to Hotbank Farm. We completely lost the trail at this point and ended up wandering across a field of thistles, with no idea of where we were supposed to be. We were clearly going in the right direction as we were walking parallel to Hadrian's Wall, but we were not clearly on a path. We were starting to worry that we wouldn't find the proper point for crossing back to the south side of the wall and that we would have to scale this tall, looming structure which was, after all, built to keep intruders from the north out! Fortunately, we spied a ladder stile in the distance with Simon's binoculars. (And for once I was glad he was lugging that weighty item around!) It turned out to be the point that the Pennine Way crosses Hadrian's Wall and I remembered seeing the stile from the other side towards the start of our walk. We decided to cut our hike short a little and struck out towards that feature - from fear that if we continued we might not find another crossing point. After that, the return journey was simply backtracking along our original route and we had no more hiccups! All in all, it was a great hiking country. There were lots of interesting historical features along the way, as well as beautiful views. We are quite tempted to undertake a long distance walk within the next few years and walking the length of Hadrian's Wall is right up there as one of our likely challenges. And maybe, just maybe, we will have a little border terrier companion by then...
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