Well, on Saturday afternoon, I hopped on a plane and headed on my 10-ish day trip to Scotland for my friend’s wedding. Over the last few months, as I’ve been planning, I’ve referred to this trip in numerous ways. My “Ireland” trip, my “Scotland” trip, etc. Well, I didn’t end up heading to Ireland this time around, but I did spend my first few days of the trip in Northern England. And boy, has it been an adventure already.
I travel a lot. I’m used to my fair share of annoyances: missing a train, not being able to find a parking space at a viewpoint I wanted to stop at, feeling nervous as I drive on the switchbacks on a mountainside road. I’ve gotten pretty good at navigating the issues that I run into. No setback is ever truly a big problem. And the setbacks I’ve run into on this trip so far also have not been major problems. But they are really annoying. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve gotten used to shorter trips, or that most of the trips I’ve been on in the last few years have been people-focused rather than purely tourism-focused, or just because things have been good for me for a while, but although I’m enjoying myself, it seems like some of that reality of travel is finally catching up to me. With my New Zealand trip last year going so much more smoothly than expected, it seems fair that my England/Scotland trip ran into a few potholes that caused some bumps along the way.
Now, I don’t mean to complain. I know how blessed I am to be able to take a trip like this, to have the security to spare 10-ish days to travel, to be able to afford the hotels I’m staying in that make me feel safe and comfortable, that I am old enough to rent a car to get me to all the places I want to go. But when you get a flat tire two hours into your trip, you’re not exactly in the right mindset to be recognizing your privilege.
That’s right. I landed in Edinburg, went through the fastest immigration line I’d ever been through, got my car, bought the extra 6-pound-a-day roadside assistance, and then started on my way south towards England. Unfortunately, my mindset was “navigate to the national park I want to be in and then find my way to the sites I actually want to see once I’m closer.” But while on Google maps, the Northumberland National Park title appears in the center of the national park, close to where the things I wanted to see were located in the South West, when navigating to “Northumberland National Park”, the map takes you right to the very North East end of the park. Because I was connected to Apple play on the car, once it started navigating, I couldn’t see that it was taking me in the wrong direction. So when my navigation told me that I’d arrived and I still hadn’t seen any signs I expected to see around a National Park, I stopped and checked my map. But of course, I’d lost signal. I ended up following a road that, from the map, appeared as if it would either end or connect up eventually with the larger road I was looking for. It did neither. Instead, it continued for a while before finally coming to some private property. I realized only after I’d crossed over a cattle grid (intended to allow cars to pass but stop livestock). So I turned around, crossed over the cattle grid again, and immediately got a blaring warning that one of my tires had 0psi. I drove forward just a bit so that I was entirely out of the way of the cattle grid, then got out to check it out. And indeed, there was a full puncture wound, a literal hole the size of a quarter, in the tire. I was down a small roadway, and I knew that a tow truck wasn’t going to be able to make it down the road, so very slowly, I drove until I was on a paved road again and could call roadside assistance. But I was still in a cell-phone dead zone, and I ended up having to drive around for about a bit over a mile on the flat tire before I was able to find some spotty service. I first called my mom, then roadside assistance. However, roadside assistance said they wouldn’t be able to get there until about four hours later and suggested I call the rental company back. I did, and they said they could have someone there in about two hours. So, having gotten off the plane at about 8:30 and having gotten on the road less than an hour later, instead of arriving at my intended destination around 11:30 or 12, I instead got picked up by a tow truck around 2:30, driven half an hour in the opposite direction from where I was going to stay, and then waited from 3-4 for them to get my tire changed. Thankfully the tow truck got me when they did, though, because it was a Sunday and the mechanic closed promptly at 4 after they finished my tire change.
So then, a full hour out of my way, I decided that my first day was well and truly shot. I drove the 2.5-ish hours to get to my hotel, making a few brief stops along the way to take a few photos, ate dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, and then fully depleted by jet lag and the stress of the day, I was asleep by 8, sleeping from 8 until 10, waking for an hour, and then sleeping again from 11 all the way until 7:45 in the morning.
The next morning, things definitely started improving, although for the next few days of my trip, it felt like I was playing catch-up. I’d planned my trip so that the most important thing I wanted to see (besides the wedding, obviously) was day 1, so it was not like I could compromise and not go back to see the things I’d missed. But especially in the beginning, I’d jam-packed the days with plans, whereas I’d left the middle part of the trip free to finish up some work and homework.
On day 2, I woke up, got some breakfast at my hotel, and started off on my first real tourist-y adventure. Because my schedule was already off, I decided to derail them even further by driving back up north, to Scotland, to see a few abbeys. On the way there (and on the way back) I stopped at the border, which was at a high point on the road and offered views over the lowlands of both countries.
Scotland did a recent survey of all of their stone buildings, and many were found to be structurally compromised. As a result, all three of the abbeys had some amount of closure due to masonry work, with two of them only being viewable from the outside. Despite that, the exteriors were beautiful and the entry was discounted, so overall the drive was well worth it.
I first visited Jedburgh Abbey, in the town of Jedburgh. Driving into the small town, the abbey immediately loomed large. It sits on a hill, presiding over the entirety of the town. The Jedburgh Abbey hosted Augustinian monks. The Jedburgh Abbey is still being actively excavated and various exposed foundations are also being re-covered.
Next, I visited Melrose Abbey, in the town of Melrose, about twenty minutes farther north. There seemed to be some kind of festival going on, and there were flags hung across the streets and large-ish crowds. The Melrose Abbey was home to Cistercian monks and was the first Cistercian abbey in Scotland. The site supported a large graveyard and also had a museum that housed fragments of original floor and carved statues that were taken out of the elements for preservation.
I grabbed a sandwich, stopped quickly to take picture with a cool bridge, and headed to my final abbey, Dryburgh Abbey. This abbey was of the Premonstretensian order, and I was able to wander it most completely. Sir Walter Scott, Scottish novelist and poet who wrote, among others, Ivanhoe and Waverly, chose to be buried in the ruins of this Abbey. In addition to seeing his tomb, I was able to walk through the various rooms of the ruins, seeing the places where monks would have lived their daily lives.
All three abbeys were built around 1100 and hosted monks until around the 1500s when the reformation occurred, with the buildings still being used as churches until the 1800s.
Finally, after visiting the three abbeys, which were not on my list, I started the almost two-hour journey to what had been on my list: Hadrian’s Wall. The drive was uneventful, with a few stops at viewpoints, but finally, more than 24 hours after I’d intended, I arrived at Hadrian’s Wall. As it was comissioned by my favorite Roman Emperor (Hadrian, mostly unproblematic and a patron of some really cool building projects) and marked at the time the farthest reach of the Roman Empire, I’m not exaggerating when I say that Hadrian’s Wall has been top three on my travel bucket list for quite some time (along with Petra, which I was able to do in 2017, and Machu Picchu, which is still on the to do list). Almost ten years ago, when I visited Scotland for the first time as part of my end-of-study abroad Denmark-Scotland-Iceland Viking-inspired trip, I tried really hard to fit it in. But I only had three days in Scotland, and my plans for Edinburgh took up a full two. Instead, I decided to spend a few hours in Glasgow last time with the goal of prioritizing Hadrian’s Wall next time. This time, finally, and not without the difficulties of a full-day delay, I was able to visit the wall.
Let me be clear, it is just a wall. But there’s also so much Roman history in this part of Scotland. I was able to see the ruins of a Roman fort and an accompanying temple to Mithras; the Housesteads Fort (and museum) where the Roman soldiers would have lived, including barracks, a latrine, and administrative buildings; and the wall itself, tucked away on the top of the hill. I walked on it, then walked along it for a ways, until I reached the next mile fort, then headed back to my car and drove to Steel Rigg, where I was able to walk another part of the wall. By the time I arrived in the area, it was pretty late in the day, and I only had about two hours to see things that were ticketed, so I opted only for the Housesteads instead of trying to rush through to other ticketed archeological sites (like Vindolanda, which I only saw the outside of). Ideally, I would have had more time. But I was able to see the wall itself, which was enough for me!
I then hopped back into the car and drove to Windermere, center of the English Lakes District (“where all the poets went to die”, shout out Taylor Swift). I stayed that night in Windemere, in a hotel with a window overlooking the lake. I was still a bit behind on my plans, and the homework requirements I had were certainly getting annoying to try and prioritize, but watching the last of the sunset on the lake with the mountains in the background certainly wasn’t too shabby of a way to end my second night of my trip.
WANDERING 