There are two major tourist attractions on Holy Island - Lindisfarne Castle and Lindisfarne Priory. Yesterday we saw the Castle in the quiet of the evening, this morning with the causeway closed from 6 to 12 again we were waiting - alone - when the priory opened at 10am.

As members of Heritage New Zealand we have reciprocal rights and hence free entry with both Heritage England and the National Trust. This site is Heritage England and the woman on the ticket counter got very excited to see our membership card. She turned out to be a wealth of information about other sites we could visit.

To get to the priory from the museum we first had to pass through the parish church grounds and graveyard.

The priory itself was built around 1100 and abandoned around 1550.

Nearly 500 years of weathering had left the blocks with intricate patterns.

St Cuthbert had been the Prior here in the seventh century and there were reminders of him everywhere.

By the time we had finished looking around the priory and a gift shop or two, the causeway had opened and people were streaming in so it was time for us to leave.

As we saw the hundreds of cars arriving on Holy Island we were grateful to have seen it when it was quiet.

Our next stop was nearly two hours drive south, at Hadrian's Wall. While deciding what site to visit on the Wall I had asked both ChatGPT and the helpful woman at Lindisfarne Priory and they had both suggested the same place and for the same reasons. And so we made our way to Housesteads Roman Fort.

We had lunch in the cafe and then began the 800m trek across the valley to the site proper, passing multiple sheep as we did.

At the museum we once again attracted attention as the enthusiastic staff were delighted to see our HNZ card and just as confused as to how to enter it into the computer. All the staff were adamant that we should visit the toilets, "the best preserved Roman toilets in Britain". Did we? Read on.

Apparently, this is the only stretch of Hadrian's Wall you are allowed to walk on.

Oh, it has just occurred to me that some of you may be unfamiliar with Mr Hadrian and his wall. The wall was built from coast to coast in Britain around 130 AD on the command of Roman Emperor Hadrian to keep the Brigatine tribes out of the best bits of the island. It worked for about 300 years and vast stretches are still visible today.

The reason we were here at Housesteads and not some other site along the wall was that this was also the site of an old Roman fort.

It was all well explained and we marvelled at the skill of the builders.

And then we made our way down to the latrines as we were scared of having to answer to the contrary if we ran into a staff member on the way out.

We were assured they were still in working order (assuming it was raining to provide a water source) but we didn't see anyone using them nor were we tempted ourselves.

Finishing at the site, it was 4pm and we still had a four hour drive ahead of us. We drove straight through apart from brief stops to change driver. We passed through villages with exotic names like Snod Edge, Muggleswick and West Auckland.

We arrived in Youlgreave in the Peak District where we will spend the next five nights with my cousins Andrew, Liz and Meryl and their spouses.

They had prepared dinner for us and then we spent hours chatting and catching up.