Well, after a whirlwind few days, I find myself in Bergen, Norway. Spent last Friday night on Carlingford over the border in the Republic of Ireland - it's claim to fame historically is Cooley Mountain, in whose shadow it sits. The "Cattle Raid of Cooley" or Tain Bo Cuailnge is the best known of the ancient epics of Ireland. Not a great deal left from those days, however (first century BCE). An adventure triathlon was starting on Saturday morning in Carlingford and it was interesting to see how the local community got behind it, including a full pipe band-led procession of the athletes through the village streets before the start!
Speaking of extreme sports, John has turned hospitality into something similar and looked after me in true Irish style for the few days I was there. I look forward to returning the favour should he make it down under in the next year or two. The final leg of the Hospitality Triathlon was a high speed run to the airport just in time for me to make my flight to Edinburgh!
I only caught a glimpse of the Scottish capital before heading SE on a bus bound for Berwick-upon-Tweed, just over the border in England. Spent most of the evening trudging around in the rain trying to find somewhere to stay and finally got the last bed in town in the backpackers hostel dorm. I'm not a big fan of dorms because there always seems to be someone snoring loudly enough to keep me awake! But I think I got my revenge this time around - I awoke a number of times during the night because someone had shaken the bed and the guy in the bed underneath mine sighed in a rather annoyed way whilst turning over!
Sunday dawned clear and rainless for a change so I decided to try to make it to Lindisfarne, the sacred tidal island just off the coast about 20km south of Berwick. Easier said than done. It was a Sunday so no buses and the bike hire place was shut. So I ended up plodding out of town towards the A1 road south in the direction I was heading and after about an hour's walk finally managed to get a lift with a nice young couple heading back down to London after a week's holiday in Scotland. They dropped me at the causeway to the island with about an hour to spare before the tide would've made it impassable. So, the last part of this pilgrimage was made on foot with 20kg on my back, which was probably quite fitting. Lindisfarne has been a place of pligrimage for at least the last 13 centuries, when St. Aidan came from Iona in Scotland to set up a monastery, at the request of Anglo-Saxon King Edwin of Northumbria. Aidan and his successors, under royal patronage, made Lindisfarne the centre of a cultural golden age during the 7th and 8th centuries in the northeast of England - it became the centre of learning and manuscript production for the whole of Europe and scholars from Lindisfarne and other centres in Northumbria spread throughout Europe, establishing other monastic institutions. I was unable to find accommodation on the island but spent a very tranquil day there all the same - a beautiful, serene, timeless place. I caught a shared taxi back to the mainland with an exasperated couple from Bath and headed on to Bamburgh, thinking it would be about the size of Berwick and have plenty of accommodation options. Bamburgh is actually a very small village with a VERY big castle. Probably the most spectacular castle in England. I got lucky though and got a good deal as "Mr Walkin Offstreet" at a small hotel just up the road from the castle. Dinner included, which was another of those superb lamb shanks. Dessert was cardamom-infused creme brulee, just going further to prove that the tales of awful food in England really are a thing of the past. After dinner, I spent the gloaming hours walking the beach, with the silhouette of Lindisfarne castle on the horizon and Bamburgh castle filling the foreground. It wasn't hard to imagine being back 1214 years in the last days of the Northumbrian Golden Age, a kingdom basking in the glow of its many achievements and enjoying a century and a half of peace and prosperity. But on the horizon, a glimpse of the prows of the first Viking ships, about to take unprotected Lindisfarne unawares and bring unimaginable horror to it and the whole of Northumbria, eventually spelling a sad end to that mighty kingdom.
I ended up in Alnwick, a bit further south, the next morning, after the hotel owner gave me a lift. Alnwick's castle , I discovered, is Hogwarts of Harry Potter fame but there has been some very serious digital enhancement going on! I hired a bike for the day and rode along a scenic section of the coastal path, which reminded me at times of the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne. Except for the spectacular views towards the ruined castle in the distance that is. Walked the last bike-free section to Dunstanburgh castle before returning to my campsite at the Alnwick Rugby Club and, if I'm not mistaken, the end of the first completely rain-free day since I've been in Britain and Ireland!
Next morning I took the bus down to Newcastle for the next stop in my Anglo-Saxon tour of Northumbria. The Venerabe Bede, Europe's foremost historian and scholar during the 7th and 8th centuries, was based in Jarrow, near Newcastle and the remains of the monastery in which he lived are still visible today. St. Paul's church next to the monastery contains a completely Anglo-Saxon chancel, which is the most extensive building I've ever seen from that era. The Angles and Saxons were very much a wood-based culture, like all of their contemporaries in northern Europe. Standing outside St. Paul's, I felt something akin to culture shock when hearing the busy road behind me and glimpsing the substantial industrial areas making up much of modern-day Jarrow. I've spent so much time and energy over the past 18 months coming to an understanding of the early English culture and literature of places such as this and Alfred's Athelney in Somerset, that part of me is still back there in early medieval centuries! I wonder what Alfred or Bede would've thought of the way we've changed our world. The Museum of Early Medieval Northumbria has been built next to the church and has been jauntily named Bede's World, probably in an attempt to make it sound like a themepark! It was actually quite good, with an outdoor section with farm animals and plants as would have been common 12 centuries ago. Some buildings have also been constructed in the Anglo-Saxon style.
I spent the evening on the coast in South Shields, just out of Newcastle and had a picnic dinner on the beach! And yes, I went in for a swim! And yes, it was absolutely freezing!
This morning I made the short hop across the North Sea, completing it in an airbus in 1 hour 15 minutes, so a bit quicker than the time those nasty horn-helmeted chaps took to do the reverse trip back in 793. Bergen has lived up to its reputation: it's been raining and cold all day! But I've still managed to see a few sights and eat a few prawns! Tomorrow I'm catching the boat up into Sognefjord to Balestrand, where I'll be starting my kayaking adventure on Friday.
