Welcome to England's least-居住させるd 郡: Amazing stargazing, rare animals, 古代の 激しく揺する art and a magical untamed landscape are just a few of Northumberland's delights

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Knocking on Scotland’s door, Northumberland is a timeless 見通し of an older, emptier England. Wild, yet accessible, England’s least 居住させるd 郡’s rolling moors, 古代の woodland and vertiginous valleys 供給する proof you don’t need to leave the UK for some splendid 孤立／分離.

Its 国境 battlegrounds, now a 平和的な mosaic of habitats, are bristling with 野性生物, while its 近づく-砂漠d roads see more sheep than SUVs.

Throw in a few nights at the Dark Sky Park and you have a road trip on a par with ? but at the fraction of the cost of ? an African adventure.

Natural beauty: Wonderful heather lights up the Coquet Valley

Easily 接近d from the A68 and A69, Corbridge makes for a good base （軍の）野営地，陣営 before you 力／強力にする north on the 近づく-straight Dere Street ? a 2,000-year-old Roman road.

Break for a coffee at Kirkharle 中庭 coffee house (in a hamlet where the famous 18th Century landscape gardener 能力 Brown was born), then it’s onwards to golden gorse hills until the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する-最高の，を越す profile of the Simonside Hills comes into 見解（をとる）.

Scattered across a sandstone promontory on these windswept moors (at their most glorious in August when the heather is in bloom) are 先史の 玉石s etched with Neolithic cup-and-（犯罪の）一味 示すs (rockartmob.ncl.ac.uk). 法外なd in mystery, they could be 解決／入植地 境界s, 大勝する markers or even shamanistic symbols, によれば archaeologists.

Sleep under the 星／主役にするs: George Clarke’s Sky Den in the Kielder Calvert 信用

This 小衝突 with our ancestors is a mere ten-minute heave up the ill from Lordenshaws, one of England’s most remote car parks. On a （疑いを）晴らす day you can drink in dizzying 見解（をとる）s of the Cheviots ? a long-extinct 火山の 形式 ? then 調査する a 2,000-year-old hill fort and Bronze Age burial cairns with just a few sprinting hares and tiptoeing curlews for company.

The 大勝する north 宙返り飛行s past 国家の 信用 所有物／資産／財産 Cragside, a Victorian house that was the first to be lit by hydroelectricity, on winding country 小道／航路s to 360-acre Chillingham Park. Better known for its haunted 城, this 中世 landscape is also home to an animal rarer than the mountain gorilla.

訪問者s can join warden Ellie Crossley on one of her safari-style Land Rover trips to catch a glimpse of 130 wild cattle, a herd that have lived here for 800 years. With no human 介入 for eight centuries, these fantastic beasts have 生き残るd against the 半端物s ? bouncing 支援する after 存在 whittled 負かす／撃墜する to just 13 in the big 凍結する of 1947.

Not far from here, on a working farm fringing Northumberland 国家の Park, are Maylies, 変えるd twin shepherd huts (hutsinthehills.co.uk), which sleep five and come with that all-important safari 中心的要素: an outdoor soaking tub.

For those up with the larks, some thrilling twitching を待つs at Harthope Valley (signposted from Wooler as Langleeford) ? also the gateway to を締めるing Cheviot 引き上げ（る）s.

The same wild beauty that charmed celebrated writer Sir Walter Scott has 誘惑するd ツバメ Kitching, of Northern Experience 野性生物 小旅行するs (northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk). The science-teacher-turned-nature-guide runs tailor-made birdwatching 小旅行するs to see the valley’s パラシュート（で降下する）ing meadow pipits, rare （犯罪の）一味 ouzels and magnificent merlins, Britain’s smallest bird of prey.

Cattle from Chillingham Park’s 古代の wild herd

The slow south-westerly 運動 is 素晴らしい and weaves through the Coquet Valley, where 古代の hay meadows 会合，会う the lonely uplands of Northumberland 国家の Park, 正確に，正当に called ‘land of the far horizons’. The skies 広げる, the sheep become hardier and the farms scarcer, until 非常に高い conifers around the village of Kielder and the 広大な 貯蔵所 there catapult you into a wilderness.

Africa may have the safari ‘Big Five’ but the ‘最高の Six’ (ospreys, カワウソs, salmon, pipistrelle bats, red squirrels and 魚の卵 deer) belong to Northumberland’s 250-square-mile Kielder Water and Forest Park. 魚の卵 have been flashing their white derrieres here since the 1700s, when the Duke of Northumberland built his not-so-humble 追跡（する）ing 宿泊する, aka Kielder 城.

Strung along the 貯蔵所’s 27-mile shoreline are 野性生物 hides such as Leaplish ? a prime 警戒／見張り for Kielder’s six 産む／飼育するing pairs of ospreys, which returned in 2009 after a two-century hiatus. And noisily scurrying around in the treetops are about half of England’s native red squirrels. Kielder is one of their last 要塞／本拠地s.

支援する at the water’s 辛勝する／優位, webbed toe prints are telltale 調印するs of the shyest of the 最高の Six: カワウソs.

Besides having Northern Europe’s largest man-made lake, Kielder’s other （人命などを）奪う，主張する to fame is its superlative stargazing. It sits squarely in the world’s third-largest 保護するd dark sky reserve, which 一面に覆う／毛布s 580 square miles of Northumberland. TV architect George Clarke’s Sky Den treehouse at activity park Kielder Calvert 信用 含むs a wet room, foldaway 内部の and retractable roof, 許すing guests to literally sleep under the 星／主役にするs (canopyandstars.co.uk).

If one night with the 星／主役にするs isn’t enough, a half-hour 運動 east, in the pretty village of Wark, Battlesteads Hotel (battlesteads.com) hosts astronomy evenings at its cosy on-場所／位置 観測所. Better still, it comes with its own 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業, 儀礼 of the 18th Century farmstead’s pub. Sundowners are 地元の gins and （手先の）技術 beers.

For the 完全にする cosmic 旅行, you can stay 夜通し in one of the hotel’s 高級な Velux-windowed eco 宿泊するs.

Stay in Hadrian’s 塀で囲む Yurt (canopyandstars.co.uk ), just seven miles from Corbridge, pictured

While a churchyard may not be an obvious place to 捜し出す out nature, in St Cuthbert’s, Beltingham, you can marvel at not one, but three 古代の イチイ trees that have stood sentinel over the South Tyne River for a millennium. They are what baobab trees are to the African bus h ? symbols of life, death and regeneration.

Move 十分な circle and stay in Hadrian’s 塀で囲む Yurt (canopyandstars.co.uk), just seven miles from Corbridge, where this wild ride began. Nestled in sheep-freckled pastures, a 石／投石する’s-throw from the Hadrian’s 塀で囲む 追跡する, it’s packed to the canvas gills with antiques, mahogany furnishings and a 支持を得ようと努めるd-燃やすing stove to curl up to on a chilly eve.

With 無 light 汚染, you may even 位置／汚点／見つけ出す a 狙撃 星／主役にする to wish upon.