Return of the Native - Part 2

Durham

Durham Cathedral was our first World Heritage Site of the trip.  The current structure dates from 1093 and shares its UNESCO listing with the castle next door.  It's long been on my must-see list because its marble columns are reputed to be the inspiration for those in the Foyer of Parliament House in Canberra.  All I can say is too much Chardonnay over an architects' long lunch!  That's not to devalue either building - which are both marvellous - but the link is tenuous at best.

We saved the castle for another day but the town, which Lin keeps reminding me is a city, is quite marvellous and terribly quaint which is a word I am doing my very best not to use more than three times a day because this whole place absolutely stinks of quaint - quaint, quaint, quaint!

Durham is a university town, the third one after Oxford and Cambridge, and it certainly has that feel about it.  The cobbled streets are (dare I say) quaint and the River Wear (pronounced 'weir') flows though in the shape of a hairpin so, for a first time visitor, it can be a little tricky to work out which of its numerous and quite lovely old stone bridges you are actually on.  There is also a weir of the Wear which rather amuses me.

Beamish - The Living Museum of the North

On our way up to Beamish we stopped at Chester-le-Street on the River Wear and ticked another thing off the list - white swans.  A couple would have done but Peter and I sat gobsmacked on the edge of an extremely unperturbed flock of around a hundred birds.  We felt terribly special and just a little bit blessed.

Beamish is fully functioning open air museum showcasing multiple aspects of life in the North of England from the 1820s to the 1940s.  There is an impressive tramway circuit complete with a collection of impeccably restored vehicles from across Northern England; steam tractors and trucks; steam trains dating back almost to Stephenson's Rocket; a coal mine with all its workings; a town; farms; a fairground; and on it goes.  A day just wasn't enough but we did our very best.

We rode on trams and trains but I was too big for the shuggy boats in the fairground which was a shame.  I shunned the coal mine but did rather enjoy the gardens and farmlands, especially the chooks.  But we all agreed that Molly the pig was the highlight of the day.

Fountains Abbey

World Heritage site #2 was Fountains Abbey near Ripon in North Yorkshire.  The place provides quite the insight into monastic life in the Middle Ages and exactly why Henry VIII was so driven to crush it.  The power and wealth the monasteries wielded was simply enormous - they had to go!

When Henry disbanded them and sacked the abbeys he ordered the roofs removed to hasten their decay which gives Fountains Abbey a Port Arthur feel for entirely different reasons.

We met Lin's oldest friend Lynne and her daughter, Jane, there for a ramble and picnic lunch and a lovely time was had by all in stunning weather which Peter described as being just like a winters day in Sydney - sunny, blue and still with temps of around 18'.

A bonus was an extremely impressive Studley Royal Water Garden a little further down the valley.  This magnificent landscape of park and pond evolved throughout the 1700 and 1800s to become the expansive indulgence of the Aislabie family and their fortunate cohort.  I can't help thinking of just how different their lives were to that of those who served them but I suppose the building and maintenance if all the ponds, follies, bridges, weirs and water courses provided employment for the locals and kept the wolf from many a door over the years.

Newcastle

I will remember Newcastle for bridges - it seems that just about everyone had a go at building one and they're all still there.  But what's also there is an enduring memory from my childhood - a slightly scary picture from a cherished book about British railways.

I was just 100m away from it, posing appropriately on Amen Corner behind St Nicholas Cathedral, when I realised exactly where I was.  The Castle Keep was just ahead, trapped between two railway viaducts that merge from the north into Newcastle Station.

The Victorians we happy to demolish just about anything in the name of progress, a fairly familiar notion, so all but the Black Gate and Castle Keep was raised to the ground with the latter being isolated by the new viaducts and a mass of crisscrossing track.  They even demolished the section of Hadrian's was that ran through the Newcastle to the coast.

I fought back my claustrophobia to climb an extraordinary number of steps to the top of the Keep and there it lay all around me, that very image I had pondered so many times so long ago.  I was absolutely delighted and lingered up there for quite some time just to take it all in and also compose myself for the inevitable decent.

The plan is to approach Newcastle again by rail another day so more then but I would be remiss not to mention the Shittingest Dog in all of Durham which we spotted by the coast road south of Sunderland.  He was a lovely springer spaniel who had doubtlessly been inside all day while his mam was at work and was now busy constructing his very own scale seaside replica of Stonehenge.  We were transfixed - amazed by the creature's astounding colonic capacity.

Cheers

Glenn