Thursday 14th May
Thursday 14th the weather was still fine but with a little more cloud although not quite so windy, but still nice. We went from the Boatside pub at Warden to Vindalanda and then onto Once Brewed which is a visitors centre in the Northumbria National Park.
The road to Vindalanda
Nice run along 72 cycle route for most part – Mike and/or Philip ahead on the bike or spare scooter and Geoff bringing up the rear in his car with lights flashing. We were very glad today for our weatherproof gear – so windy we had everything on with hoods up over our hats to keep them on! (Looked like red chickens with our hoods up and the white peaks of our caps poking out).
We stopped at Vindalanda our first visit to a Roman fort and had great fun cos disabled-friendly it is not!!!! The staff at the centre were really helpful and we had lunch in the cafe there before attempting to view the fort. This proved very difficult and even when we did make it onto the site it was virtually impossible to move around or get close enough to see any of the remains. We moved on from Vindalanda to Once Brewed where we met with Paget Lazarotti a Ranger for the Northumbria National Park.
Once Brewed
We had tentatively arranged to visit Housesteads (which is one of the best preserved forts on the wall) on Saturday as it is not actually on our route and Paget took some of us over to have a look in advance at the terrain. It is in a very isolated hilly spot and very difficult to view for people on scooters etc. We took the decision that if it was dry and people wanted to visit we would go but if it rained it would be impossible. We returned to Once Brewed loaded up the truck and arranged to meet back with Paget at the start of our journey the next morning.
