Couldn't publish this yesterday as the wifi at the hotel was abysmal.
Before leaving the hotel this morning I checked my email and got the good news that my Florence accommodation is sorted out. Apparently they had lots of students to accommodate so that they even had to work on Sunday (molto cattivo!).
Leaving Newcastle today we headed west towards Hexham, our first priority being to find somewhere to sleep tonight. At Hexham we drove through the town and spotted the County Hotel which offers accommodation but we drove a bit further to see what else we could find. Since we didn't see anywhere more obvious than the County Hotel, we went back there to check the availability of rooms. They didn't have a twin room but could offer us two doubles but we couldn't check in yet as it was just after 11am. Anyway, we booked the rooms and then back into the car to continue westwards on an exploratory drive. After heading along the main road (A69) for a while we turned off at Haydon Bridge and then headed north up towards Hadrian's wall. We ended up on the road which parallel's the wall and stopped at Once Brewed Park HQ which is right beside the Once Brewed Youth Hostel. My long ago memory of the Once Brewed YHA is that they had a shed out the back which housed an old piano which Evelyn and I angled away on. There were a lot of dope out on the road - many cyclists as well as motorists - because of it being a Bank Holiday.
After our stop at Once Brewed we continued west and, after joking the A69 again turned off to the village of Brampton where we got a fresh sandwich from the Spar shop to eat a bit after on. From there we headed south on the A689 heading towards Alston. This took us through the North Pennines which are a sort of cross between farmland and moorland. There does not appear to be. Lot of soil to sustain good grass growth and the increasing altitude probably does not help either. We found a place to stop by the roadside to eat our sandwiches and have a break. The places down here seem to be very isolated although not too far away from major places like Carlisle in miles.
After lunch we continued towards Alston, along the way moving between Northumbria and Cumbria as the road wriggled through. At Alston, we headed northwards again towards Hexham. Since thus took us close to Allendale we detoured through there as I had vague memories related to the name but when we got there nothing triggered any more memories, although the village itself is quite pretty. An easy drive from Allendale back to Hexham and then we checked into The County Hotel, which is where I am writing this now.
We drove through some magnificent countryside today and expect to see a lot more tomorrow. We also saw several pheasants crossing the road, and also the odd one that became instant pate. Some road signs warned "Caution Red Squirrels" but we didn't see any so there was no need to fear an attack from them. Perhaps the Curse of the Were Squirrel is real!
