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Morning after

By JoT, on March 14th, 2010
Regular reader's of this blog will know how much I love Hadrian's Wall, hoping my scribblings will tempt people to come to this area and see for themselves how wonderful it is.

So it's with a heavy heart that I write about the Illuminating Hadrian's Wall event last night.

I'm sure many people will declare it a resounding success, business along the Wall have reported record numbers of visitors. The Greenhead Hotel served 200 meals yesterday and hope for something similar today and B&B's are full at a time of year when there would normally be very few people about.

People start to gether on Cawfield Crags

The Wall farmers however have not fared so well, most of them get no income from tourists and have had to put up with thousands of people trampling over their land, with no regard for the countryside or livestock.
One farmer had several dogs running freely amongst his sheep, he would have been well within his rights to shoot them but when he asked owners to put the dogs on a lead he got a torrent of abuse.
People were clambering all over the Wall with no regard at all for this ancient monument. Roads were clogged and people were parking where ever they could, or simply driving along the Military Road looking at the lights along the way.

Mucklebank Crag panorama at sunset, only three burners were lit along this whole stretch

I went to Cawfields, people spent all day there so they'd be sure of getting a parking space. I chose to be on the public footpath that goes up towards Great Chesters Farm thinking I'd get a nice line of lights coming all the way down from Winshields Crag up through Great Chesters Fort and onto Mucklebank Crag.

Hundreds of people wait for the illuminations to begin

Of course that assumed that people would be able to light the burners and would have enough gas for them to burn for a while.
There were obviously technical problems, so there were big gaps where lights should have been.

Where are all the lights?

What did make me cross was when I saw Roger Clegg's lovely shot looking down from Winshields Crag towards Steel Rigg.
The VIP's were all gathered at Steel Rigg and obviously wanting to make sure they were impressed, twice as many lights were used along the crag there.
I can count 17 burners and no doubt there are more in the 'dunks' how fair is it that people who paid good money to come and view this event get faulty burners and black space while VIP's on a freebie get extra lights.
Even the burner on the highest point of Hadrian's Wall at Winshields Crag seemed to run out of gas after being alight for just 5 minutes.
There was a line of light along the route of Hadrian's Wall but it was car lights in nose to tail traffic.
Some great photographs of the Roman Soldier's at Bowness on Solway firing flaming arrows into the sea, I wish I'd been there!

Hope to be posting on a more positive note later in the week.
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