five

I had another early morning, it was very overcast for most of the day, but we went to Durham anyway. Durham has a long history that would need a whole book to tell, so I will leave that to other people to do. But basically what happened was that there was a Bishop called Cuthbert who stayed on one of the Farne Islands. He died there in 687 AD. It had been arranged that when he died his body would be taken off the Island that he was on and moved onto another of the Farne Islands. The monks opened his coffin about 3 years later and his body had not changed since his death and was proclaimed a Saint. As a result of this a lot of people went to see his body. This attracted the Vikings unfortunately As a result of that the Monks had to flee the Island and eventually in 995 they settled down in Durham with Cuthberts body. And from then on Durham grew.

The first place we stopped off was at Durham Cathedral. It was so amazing. It was so huge and peaceful. In 1093 on the 11th of August the present foundations of the Cathedral were laid down by Bishop William and the Benedictine Monks. Building continued until 1380. And then parts of the Cathedral were rebuilt and cracks fixed etc. The latest addition to the Cathedral is the Millennium Window.

Ken and I walked up all the stairs to the top of the Cathedral to get a birds eye view of the place. I was more tired than Ken when we got to the top and he is 60 years old!! Even though it was overcast we could still see a long way off in all directions. It was breathtaking!!

After this we went for a walk long the Wear River. We walked past 'The Upper Room' and took a couple photo's of it. The Upper Room is a sculpture carved out of trees done by Collin Wilbourn in 1986/7. You can sit in the one tree and face all the other trees you can see a touching record of Christ's last Supper.

We then proceeded to go to the Market Place and go to the Indoor Market. It was nice looking at all the shops. On the market place there was a group of singers called APU who were playing. I enjoyed there music and bought one of their albums. We sat and ate ice cream as well while listening to them.

We eventually had to head home as we were all tired and didn't know what else to do. I was not geared very well to know what else to see there and what to do.
I woke up to the rain and cool weather. It was my other cousins turn to take me out for the day. Sean and I caught a bus and then the train to Newcastle.

Newcastle was first settled during Roman Times when a fort was built there called Pons Aelius around 120 AD. From 1558 - 1603 Newcastle became the biggest coal exporter. It then became an Industrial Area. It is now a very goof place to go shopping and has many malls with an excellent night life!!!

We got to Newcastle and walked around Eldon Square for a while which is another huge shopping mall. We then tried to find a Bible Shop, but had no luck.

We then went to St.. Nicholas's Church. We eventually found the entrance and went inside. It was raining on us at that stage, so it was nice to get some shelter.

The Majority of the Cathedral was built in the 14th and 15th Centuries, but there are parts that date back all the way to 1175. It is one of England's smallest Cathedrals.

Then went to go see a part of Hadrians Wall which was built by the Romans to keep the 'Barbarians' out. The Barbarians were not the Picts or the Scottish, they came later. The wall was 5 meters high and it was built from Wallsend - on - Tyne in the east to Bowness - on - Solway in the west. It took the Roman soldiers six years to build in 122 AD. It was 117 km long.

After this long walk from the one end of town to the other we ate some lunch at KFC and eventually headed home. We got home and relaxed for a while. For dinner we ate an English dish called Dumplings and Gravy. I enjoyed it a lot, but did not manage to finish it all.

Sean and I then got a lift to the train station and caught the train back into Newcastle to paint the town red with all his friends. We went to a couple of pubs and clubs. We ended up spending most of our time in a club called Foundation. I paid L4,00 to get in which is what we pay to get into very expensive clubs in South Africa. We left Foundation at 1:30am and went in search of food. We eventually got home at about 3am.

Go to next chapter

Go back to contents page

Go back to home page