We visited Cumbria

Skip, Jade, Dave and I went camping in Cumbria. Cumbria is the most North-Westerly county in England, bordering Scotland.

 

So the first thing we did was to visit Hadrian's Wall.

The plaque told us that in 122AD the Roman Emperor Hadrian built a wall from the East Coast to the West Coast as the northern limit of his Empire to help keep the Ancient Brits out. About every 5 miles was a fort. We went to see the ruins of Birdoswald Fort.

Birdoswald Fort has a visitors center that we really wanted to see. It has an area for younger visitors to make a model of the wall.....

Jade was "Queen of the Castle..."

....and for older visitors there's an area where they can make a LEGO® model of the wall.....

......a very long model of the wall!

We met the lovely ladies who run the visitor centre who wanted a photo with us. Weeelllll - a photo with Skip 'cos they said he looked like their boss, Tony Wilmott, who wrote the book they're holding.

Just over the border in Scotland is a place called Gretna Green where couples used to elope and get married. "Well", laughed Skip, " I think you two are too young to get married today." "Thank goodness", said Jade. "Cheek!", I said!

Outside the Old Smithy Gift Shop are signs saying 'Hello' in 28 languages. Can you spot Jade standing on one of the signs?

'Jambo' is the African word for 'Hello' which BP introduced to the Scouting world. Big International Scout camps are called Jamborees.

We went for a ride on a narrow gauge railway. I had to get inside when the train started moving.

On the Western side of Cumbria is a National Park, called the Lake District. The town of Windermere is on Lake Windermere. That's where the author Beatrix Potter used to live. She wrote the series of childrens' books about Peter Rabbit and his friends. Jade really wanted to see the Beatrix Potter exhibition. 

 

She got up close to Peter Rabbit.

Red Squirrels feature in the books.....

....especially Squirrel Nutkin.

Jade's favourite character is Mrs Tiggywinkle.

We had a cream tea in a hotel. Skip was most impressed by the size of the mug his coffee arrived in. We just managed to stop him jumping in for a swim!

On the way back we stopped off in Stratford-on-Avon. It was interesting to see that the local Scouts were running a recruiting drive for adult volunteers.

And , of course, we couldn't go to Stratford-on-Avon without going to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform a play.

We had great fun on our holiday!