Housesteads Roman Fort & Castle Cary Newton Stewart

 Day 5 Saturday 20th April. I’ve started putting the date as all days are just rolling into each other and I’m completely losing track of time! Guess this is a good sign of being relaxed and retired! I’m very lucky that’s for sure. We’ve got into the swing of van life a bit more now and have our set up and pack away routines. All our stuff is in stackable storage boxes which makes it easy for travelling. I make sure everything is stored away in the boxes and then whilst I walk Dex, John gets the boxes arranged for travelling and sorts out the van legs, gas, electric etc. He also empties the toilet thank God! 🤣 To be honest I have done it before and not too bad really with the chemical fluid as it doesn’t smell but it’s more the thought of it! So far, apart from one night, we’ve had toilet blocks to go to as we’ve been on sites. We’ve also had electric hook up so have been spoilt as could use our microwave and air fryer! We do have most mod cons, fridge with small freezer compartment, gas hob, oven and grill, electric and gas kettles depending on what we need and a toilet and shower on board. We even have a coffee machine thanks to our kind friends Tess & Rob! 🥰 So we are very well organised. We’ve been cooking in the van most nights. 

Yesterday morning I walked Dex whilst John packed up Tekki. Lovely to see the lambs in the fields. Then we set off for Housesteads Roman Fort which was only a few miles from our campsite. It’s a National Trust and English Heritage site. We are NT members so were able to get in free. It was great there I was really impressed with how much of it remains after 2000 years! The Romans certainly knew how to live! We went through the fort and back up onto Hadrian’s wall and you can actually walk on top of the wall for a short section. Fabulous views over the countryside. Then we came to Milecastle 37 which was the remains of one of the small keeps along the wall, placed at each mile to house soldiers keeping watch. It was great as they even had a partial archway and we were able to get a guy to take our photo in front of it. Then we went back for a proper tour of the fort. We actually spent about 3 hours walking around it was so interesting. 

Housesteads Fort

Afterwards we headed for Carlisle and a visit to Sainsbury’s. We had hoped to get some Flo gas in Carlisle but unfortunately the Flo gas shop was closed. Then on to Scotland and our first campsite over the border! It was great seeing the Welcome to Scotland sign 🥰 We had a lovely scenic trip to Castle Cary Campsite which is near Newton Stewart. Heading towards Stranraer. 
























My favourite photo of the day 🤣












We were hoping to pop to Gretna just for a quick look but we needed to press on to our campsite as it was getting late.
We were so happy to see this sign!








Castle Cary campsite Castle Cary Campsite

Not a bad spot for the night!








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