Northumberland - Days 10 & 11 - Hadrian's Wall and Sherwood Forest

Day 10 - Wednesday was our last full day in Northumberland and we decided to walk eastwards today and caught the bus to Greenhead which is about 5 miles west of the campsite.

We had an really nice cup of coffee and bought 2 cakes - ate one and kept another for the walk!

We had a good walk, avoided any real rain (some drops) and ended up walking further than the day before.

Some interesting things en-route.  Thirwell Castle, a long since abandoned house rather than a castle.

The walk was just as beauiful as yesterday but not quite as bright!  We managed to get back to the campsite just as it started to rain - hard.

It continued to rain most of the afternoon until about 7.  So we made the best of the day out!

Dinner was pizza made in the tiny kitchen.  OK in the end but better attempted when we can cook outside

Day 11 - Southwards on the way home.  We drove some 170 miles south and decided to do a short walk in Sherwood Forest which is quite near the campsite we booked.  We did a short 4 miles.

The history for the day is Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood.

Shrewood has been wooded since the ice age. Today it is just over 1000 acres and is the remnant of an older, much larger, royal hunting forest, which derived its name from its status as the shire (or sher) wood of Nottinghamshire.  When the Doomsday Book was complied in 1086 it was approximately 1/4 of Nottinghamshire!

Sherwood Forest is home to the famous Major Oak, which, according to local folklore, was Robin Hood's principal hideout. The oak tree is between 800 and 1,000 years old and, since the Victorian era, its massive limbs have been partially supported by an elaborate system of scaffolding.

Re Robin Hood ... well the lines between fact and fiction are blurry when it comes to Robin Hood and his sidekicks. Characters in English folklore with similar names appear around the 13th century, and Robin starts to feature in ballads around 200 years later. His birthplace and origins remain the stuff of great debate (of course it was Sherwood!) and several counties claim Robin as their own local folklore hero.