Day 9 - Carlisle to Bowness-on-Solway

We walked 17 miles today.  We made it!

Robert, Sharon, Dave & Carol at end of Hadrian's Wall trail.

Courtfield Guest House

We got an early start from the Courtfield Guest House in Carlisle.  We were on the trail at 8:15, walking through the streets of Carlisle to the Sands Center to join the trail and stamp our Hadrian's Wall Passports.  The day was grey and threatened rain.  When we got back on the trail, the path followed along the River Eden.  It was green and lovely, sprinkled with a bit of rain.  We left the city of Carlisle pretty quickly and it was nice to be back in the countryside.  

We walked along the river and on country roads, with rain threatening, but never materializing.  As always, there were some beautiful flowers.  We still were surrounded with sheep and cattle too.  

We came to the village of Burgh-on-Sands around noon and stopped in at the Norman church.  Hadrian's Wall has largely disappeared in this part of the country because the population was so good at "recycling."  Many of the churches and castles have stones from the wall.  This one is no different.  As we entered, a woman greeted us and told us a lot about the history of the building.  This particular church was built in the 12th century, with addition in the 13th and 14th centuries.  This area was home of English and Scottish raiding bands for 300 years, so the church was built for protection as much as worship.  It was around lunch time and she suggested that we stop by the tearoom, just up the street.  

Ice creams available at the Rosemount Tearoom

What a find!  We stopped for lunch at the Rosemount Tearoom.  We were initially intrigued by the listing of the ice cream flavors.  We never did find out what a Nobbly Bobbly or Vimto Jubbly was!  This was a simple little one-cook shop in a house along the lane.  We all had soup or sandwiches and finished with cakes (lemon, orange, carrot and rocky road).  It was all fresh, homemade and delicious.  We are ready to hit the trail once again!  

Rosemount Tearoom

Laal Bite Tuckshop

The weather cleared and we walked on in sunshine.  We had reference points (gatherings of houses or crossroads) about every 30 minutes.  First, Dykesfield, where we needed to check the board posting tidal information to be sure we could get across the flats.  Our timing is good.

On to Boustead Hill, a long flat march along the marsh.  We still see cows and sheep grazing in the marsh grass.  Past the turn for Easton and on to Drumburgh.  At Drumburgh, we stopped in at Laal Bite Tuckshop.  This is another "honesty" shop with cold drinks, coffee, crisps and candy bars available.  You are asked to leave money for whatever you take.  Robert had an ice cream and we all used the restroom facilities.

Now to Glasson, Port Carlisle and finally Bowness-on-Solway.  At 4:50pm, we reached the end of the trail.  We all felt great!  No one was totally spent. Only Carol has a few blisters on her feet.  Celebration all around!

Robert at the Wall's End!

Day 8 - Walton to Carlisle

Today is Indy's 21st birthday!

We walked 8.63 miles to arrive in Carlisle.  We walked around town to bring the total to 12 miles for the day.  The trail guide said 11 miles today, but our hostess dropped us off in Newtown, rather than Walton, to start our walk today.

Oakwood Park Hotel

We all enjoyed the stay at Oakwood Park Hotel.  Our breakfast was served at 8:30am, a bit later than our usual 7:30am.  It was generous and delicious!  We got underway about 9:40, being dropped off at Newtown by Wendy.  Rain is predicted, but the day started overcast, cool and dry.

The track is through fields, but very flat.  The scenery is nicely pastoral, but not the spectacular views from the crags.  We have left the wall behind too, so there are not a lot of stops for poking around.  That means we made really good time!  We came upon this Stall-on-the-Wall.  A box of snacks, with payment on the honor system.

The rain came and went, but nothing too much.  Each time someone would put on a rain jacket or rain pants, the rain would stop for awhile.  Our route into Carlisle took us along the River Eden.  It was a lovely walk, even in the rain.

By shortly after 1pm, we had made it to our destination for the night, Courtfield Guest House in Carlisle.  Our hostess was kind enough to let us check in early, so we dried off, had lunch with apples, granola bars and cookies, rested a bit, wished Indy a Happy Birthday and set off to explore the sights of Carlisle.

We started at the Tullie House Museum to see the Roman exhibit and the reivers exhibit.  We enjoyed the Roman exhibit since we had seen much of the same in the past few days.  They did have some new interpretations and did a good job of providing context for the artifacts.  The museum is more about the Carlisle area than just Hadrian's Wall, so we learned more of the history of this area.  Because this city is so close to Scotland and the borderlands, there is a long history of raiding back and forth between England and Scotland.  For about 300 years, this was truly a lawless place.  The city was under siege by various parties from time to time.

From the museum, we visited Carlisle Castle.  With all that raiding, there needed to be a safe place to hole up when needed.  The castle was built in the 12th century and had stood the test of time.  Our last stop on the sight-seeing tour was the cathedral.  Built in 1133 by Augustinian priors, it is a lovely church.  As we entered, an Evensong service was being held.  It was wonderful to walk around to the sounds of organ and the choir.

As we walked back to the Courtfield Guest House, we stopped in at an Italian restaurant for dinner.  We felt that we should continue the Roman theme of our trip.  The dinner was fine, but nothing outstanding.

We have seen beautiful flowers in this land of cool temperatures and constant moisture.  We ran across giant poppies this morning.

Large poppies.  Robert's hand for scale.

Clematis.  Sharon's hands for scale.

This clematis is on the wall of our guest house.




Tomorrow is our last day of walking.  We need to pay attention to the tides and hope to get an early start since we saw the sights of Carlisle today.  The pace should be fairly fast, like today, since it is pretty flat.

Day 7 - Gilsland to Walton

We walked 10 miles today.  Our trail guide said 8, but we added a couple of miles to visit Lanercost Priory.

Howard Hill Farm in Gilsland

We left Howard Hill Farm about 9am, with the sun shining in a clear blue sky.  What a lovely morning for a walk!  Our breakfast was substantial and delicious, as we have come to expect.  Helen assured us that it was a true Cumbrian breakfast--eggs, sausage & bacon were all from local sources.

Roman bridge abutment over Irthing river

The fields of sheep and cows were again part of our route.  We started by seeing a Roman bridge abutment built to cross the Irthing river outside of Gilsland.  The river's course has shifted, so the stones are on dry land.  We crossed a modern bridge and climbed to see another milecastle.  We stopped to chat with a local Gilsland resident and his very cute Borders terrier named Buster.  On we walked to Birdoswald, another Roman fort.  This site is partially excavated, but also became part of a home in the subsequent centuries.  There was an interpretative museum that was OK, but nothing that we haven't seen before.  Dave and Carol picked up sandwiches for lunch and Robert got an ice cream at the tea room.

Walking across the countryside, we were blessed with sunshine, a few clouds, but no rain.  It continued to be a very enjoyable day to walk.  We walked into Banks, took a brief detour to Lanercost but decided against this route and returned to our path.  We were rewarded with a lovely chunk of the wall.  We stopped to have lunch in the shadow of the wall.  We had cobbled together our lunches from purchased sandwiches, chips (crisps), cookies and apples provided by earlier hostesses, granola bars, etc.  It was a delightful picnic.
 
On we trekked to a more clearly marked turn to Lanercost Priory.  We hiked 1/2 mile south of our path to visit this priory built in 1166.  It was a Augustinian priory (kind of like a monastery) until being dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530's.  It also became a family home and the church was preserved.  The church is still operating today and has textiles and stained glass designed by William Morris in the 1880's.  Other parts of the site are in ruins but fun to poke around in.  The woman running the gift shop was very knowledgeable and happy to share info with us.

Waiting on the green in Walton

We returned to our path by a route suggested by our new gift shop friend and had a splendid walk for about an hour into Walton.  Both our tour company and our hostess last night had told us about a tea shop near the Walton's green that is run by local ladies, but unfortunately it was not open on Sunday afternoon.  We didn't have to walk to our lodging tonight, but called the car service provided by our tour company to collect us and deliver us to Oakwood Park Hotel.

This is our most luxurious lodging so far.  The large Victorian house has extensive grounds and is lavishly furnished.  Our bedrooms and baths are quite large and have all the usual supplies (shampoo, conditioner, bath gel) plus a few others.  A warm soak in the large tub was quite the ticket when we arrived off the trail.  Carol and Dave wandered around to visit the chickens, turkey and geese.

We were picked up again by Brampton Cars to go to dinner at the Blacksmith Arms in Talkin.  Brendan, a talkative Irishman, was our driver.  Dinner was wonderful, once again.  Robert had a seafood pie, Dave liver and onions, Carol cannoli and I had lasagne.  We split three desserts between the four of us -- mint ice cream sundae, sticky ginger pudding with custard and apple/blackberry crumble with ice cream.  We all felt fat and happy.  No walk home tonight.  Brendan returned to pick us up and entertain us for the ride back to Oakwood Park Hotel.

Two more days of walking.  The weather doesn't look as good for tomorrow, but we'll see.

Typical sign post that we look for as we follow the trail

Day 6 - Once Brewed to Gilsland

We walked 12.2 miles today plus .6 back from dinner.  Total 12.8 miles.  Our packet said this was an 8 mile day.

It was a lovely day to walk on Hadrian's Wall.  There was no rain today.  The sun shone, but the temperature was just a bit cool.  Very nice walking weather.

We set out shortly after 9:00am from Vallum Lodge.  The breakfast was excellent.  We settled up for laundry, packed lunches and one candy bar that Robert had. Our walk started today with a short walk from the Lodge to the award-winning Steel Rigg car park.  We don't know what awards, but it was a scenic car park on top of the crags.  That put us back on the Hadrian's Wall path to start our trek.  In about 15 minutes of hiking, we were at the highest point on the trail, 345 meters, at Winshield Crags.  The views were outstanding once again.

Robert and Sharon at highest point on trail

We continued walking up and down the crags for the morning, but more down than up.  We stopped at the Great Chesters Fort, an unexcavated ruin of a Roman fort, for lunch.  The day was lovely, the grass was green and lush, so we spread out a picnic blanket and sat down to enjoy our packed lunches.

Picnic lunch at Great Chesters Fort

We set out with renewed vigor to attack the crags.  The day is not as strenuous as our last day of walking as we are having less up and down to deal with, plus the weather is lovely.  Partly cloudy skies and cool breezes.  We stopped to rest at a milecastle and visited with a Canadian archaeology student who had just finished two weeks of digging at Vindolanda.  This was her second year to do so and she said the experience was wonderful.

Robert, Carol, Sharon and Dave - taken by Canadian student

We saw several people that we had seen at Vallum Lodge the night before and we ran into the Roman Centurion again!  He is still walking.  Since this is Saturday, we came across several groups of students and families just out for the day.

Mid-afternoon, we stopped at the Roman Army Museum (after our first experience of losing the trail and adding about a mile to our walk).  Most of the exhibits here come from Vindolanda, but deal more with the military side rather than civilian life.  We enjoyed the movie and the interpretive exhibits here.  We walked by the ruin of Thirlwall castle.  This is quite an imposing ruin of a grand structure.  Carol particularly enjoyed it.

Carol at Thirlwall castle

On we go across the fields of sheep and cows to Gilsland, our destination for the night.  We walked through the village of Gilsland, found the school (our landmark) and left the trail to walk to our B&B, Howard Hill Farm.  We arrived about 5:15 to a lovely farmhouse and all relaxed a bit before our 7:30 dinner reservation at the Samson Inn in town.  We can look east and see the crags we started out walking this morning.

Our hostess, Helen, drove us into town (we very much appreciated the lift) where we had another lovely dinner.  Service was slow initially, but once we ordered (after waiting for 30 minutes) things moved quickly and the food was delicious once again.  Burger and chips (fries) for Robert, hot pot for me (lamb stew), brie and vegetable pasty for Carol and bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes) for Dave.  All really tasty!  No dessert tonight and we enjoyed a lovely walk back to the Howard Hill Farm as the sun was setting (about 9pm).

Day 5 - Rest Day. Walk to Vindolanda

Vallum Lodge

We walked 3.28 miles today.

This is our rest day at the lovely Vallum Lodge in Once Brewed.  We had a leisurely breakfast, knowing we did not need to get on the trail today.  The Lodge offers laundry service, so we all gathered up muddy things to have them laundered.  At 11am, we met to walk 1.5 miles to Vindolanda, an excavated Roman fort site.

It was an easy walk along a country road and the day is overcast, but not rainy.  It is a bit chilly, but with a light coat, the weather is fine.  [The British have a saying, "There is no bad weather, only poor clothing choices."]  Vindolanda was a grand way to spend our rest day!  We felt free to poke around the excavations and excellent museum without worrying about having to walk another 3 hours to our stop for the night.

This fort was laid out in the now-familiar Roman pattern, with excellent interpretive panels explaining the different buildings.  There is still excavation continuing here, so some areas were roped off.  This area has apparently been uniquely suited to preserving artifacts and remains from former times due to the composition of the soil in this area.  The most exciting find here, besides lots of shoes, pottery and weapons are "postcards."  These are small letters written in ink that detail mundane happenings about Roman life in this settlement.  There are lists of supplies, a birthday party invitation, letters between friends, etc.  Truly fascinating to read and contemplate.

There is reconstruction of a milecastle on Hadrian's Wall here where we spent time recreating scenes from Monty Python movies.

We had lunch in a lovely tearoom and really enjoyed the museum.  Most of the displays are of Roman daily life rather than the military functions.  They have done an excellent job of telling the stories of the findings.  The excavations are on-going, so the exhibits grow and change.

We walked back to the Lodge mid-afternoon.  Dave and Carol stopped off at the Twice-Brewed pub for a pint, while Robert and I returned to the Lodge.  Everyone relaxed (rested on our rest day) until dinner.  We returned to Twice-Brewed once again.  This place has outstanding food.  Fresh, local and well-prepared.  Robert had the beef pie again and the rest of us had smoked haddock over mashed potatoes.  For dessert, Robert couldn't pass up the Mint Sizzle and I had the Fruit Crumble with cream.  The fruit tonight was rhubarb.  Yum, yum.

As we walked back around 8pm, the day is still quite light.  That is good since we have to walk about 200 yards on a busy highway.  Back on the trail tomorrow, well-rested with clean clothes.

Day 4 - Hallbarns to Vallum Lodge (Chesters to Once Brewed)

Hallbarns - our B&B

We walked 11 miles today.

We had a lovely breakfast at Hallbarns, our B&B.  We had invited Jay, another walker, to join us for breakfast.  He is going the same direction on the path as we are, but doing the trail in 7 days rather than our 10.  Delicious food, once again.  We all got packed lunches to eat on the trail.  Getting the packed lunches is a bit like being on the receiving end of all the school lunches that I've packed over the years.  It is always a treat to see what is in the bag.

Rather than walk back to the trail from Hallbarns, we were happy to have our host drop us back on the trail.  We started our morning at Black Carts, where we saw a large chunk of the wall.  The weather prediction is no rain for the day, but we all have on our rain jackets. The day turned out to be wet, but not nearly as much real rain as the day before. Still, parts of the trail were muddy and we were glad for rain pants and gaiters.

Hadrian's Wall at Black Carts

Very soon, we reached Limestone Corner, the northernmost point of our walk and the northernmost point of the Roman Empire in Hadrian's time.  Walking along the trail, we have a good view of the ditch dug on the north side of the wall and we can look south to see the Vallum clearly too.

In about an hour, we reached Brocolitia Roman Fort. This fort is unexcavated, so is really just bumps of earth.  The more interesting excavation is Mithras Temple, excavated and open to the skies and viewing.  There are alters set up, but these are reproductions.  The originals are in a museum in Newcastle. While looking at the temple, we were joined by a Danish couple who were staying at the same B&B as we were last night.  They are trying to "follow Hadrian all over Europe."

Mithras Temple

As we left the temple to return to the path, the way was quite muddy.  I stepped on what I thought was a rock to cross a boggy area and sunk my left foot to the shin in mud.  Once again, I said "thank you" to Steve Saunders for recommending the high gaiters!  My shoe and gaiter were quite muddy, but my foot stayed dry.

Milecastle - notice reconstructed Roman arch over gateway

We came upon ruins and excavations of turrets and milecastles.  Part of the wall construction, milecastles were placed at every mile along the route.  These were "gates" that could control the flow of traffic through the wall.  There were usually 10 men stationed here, so there are living facilities in addition to the gate.  Between each milecastle are two turrets.  The turrets were basically "lookout stations" along the way.

The defensive ditch also ends in this area.  We are walking into the "crags" or cliffs across the English landscape.  The Romans realized the 1) the rock is really hard to cut or dig a ditch into and 2) the cliffs form a natural barrier that is even more formidible than the ditch.  Our path takes us up and over these crags.  The views are truly breathtaking! We all feel like we are on top of the world!

We stopped for another damp lunch in the woods atop Sewingshields Crags.  We spread our waterproof picnic blanket on the soggy ground and looked north, tranfixed by the view.  Our ham sandwiches (Carol took off the ham) were quite delicious.  It started raining just as we were finishing up.  We covered our packs, put on rain gear and set off.  We can see Bromlee Lough (a big lake) to the northwest and more incredible views. There are pieces of wall here and there.  We climbed up and down some more crags (Dave & Carol found ways "around" that didn't involve so much climbing) and arrived at Housesteads.

Shortly after 1pm, we reached Housesteads.  This is the best of the excavated Roman forts along the wall.  In addition to the Roman ruins, the site itself is lovely.  There are incredible views to both the north and the south here. The fort is laid out in the same pattern as Segedunum and Chesters, with the administrative building in the middle and barracks and living quarters on the side.  It reminds me a bit of coming upon Manchu Pichu and seeing the extensive ruins, but being able to imagine the daily life of the people who lived here.

We were hoping for a tearoom to rest and warm up, as well as toilet facilities.  The toilets were porta-potties and the tearoom was an automatic tea machine, but we made do.  We watched a short film about the site and spent about an hour poking around.

Apparently, school children in Britain have this week off from school.  At Chesters, we saw part of a cavalry demonstration which then involved getting kids involved in some horse-related activities (using stick horses).  At Housesteads, we saw a "centurion" in uniform giving kids a "solders' training" school.  They had sticks and shields to work with.

We spent the rest of the day walking up and down the crags and enjoying the spectacular scenery.  There are many portions of Hadrian's Wall standing in place.  Much of the wall along this portion of the path was preserved by one man, John Clayton, in the mid-1800s.  He realized the value of this Roman artifact, which was being destroyed by local farmers and builders carrying off the convenient building materials.  He bought up large portions of the land where the wall was located and attempted to preserve it.  In places he rebuilt the wall.

Shortly after 4pm, we descended from our last crag of the day (Peel Crags) to arrive at Once Brewed.  Our lodging for the next two days will be Vallum Lodge in Once Brewed.  After resting a bit at the B&B, we walked back to Twice Brewed Pub for dinner.  We met Jay from Richmond at the bar!  He joined us for dinner and we all commiserated about the damp walking today (but better than the rain the day before).  He continues on in the morning, but we get a day off the trail to rest a bit at Vallum Lodge.  Dinner was delicious!  Robert had meat pie, I had sausage (pork & leek), Dave had beef and Carol had fish.  All was really tasty!  Robert had Mint Sizzle for dessert--Mint chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and chocolate chips.  I had double butterscotch ice cream.

Off the bed and looking forward to being off the trail tomorrow!
   

This was a wet one

We walked 10.83 miles today.

Today was rainy.  We had an outstanding breakfast at the Marfen High House, with home-made bread (served warm from the oven), house-made preserves and delicious breakfast items.  We met Alison and John from Seattle, who are also walking the Wall, but in the opposite direction of us.  Ginny, our hostess, packed us each lunches and we headed out into the rain about 9am.

The countryside was lush and beautiful.  We walked through many fields that were shared with grazing sheep, with lots of lambs staying near their mothers.  Parts were pretty muddy too.  Robert and Carol donned their rain pants, but Dave and I made do with gaiters.  (Thank you, Steve Saunders, for the high-gaiters tip.  They worked quite well today.)  There were lovely views throughout the day, although some were a bit obscured by rain and clouds.  We walked in and beside the Roman "ditch," as well as the Vallum (see below).

We stopped to eat our packed lunches in the rain at a picnic table outside the Errington Arms at the Portgate roundabout.  The Port Gate was built into Hadrian's Wall to accommodate a major north-south road running from Scotland to York.  Today it is still an intersection of two major roads in England.

Our trek continued west through pastures and fields with the Vallum on our left.  When the Romans built the wall, they dug a deep ditch on the northern side as an additional defense against the Scottish raiders.  On the southern side, "behind" the wall, there is another wider ditch.  This is the Vallum.  Historians are uncertain about the purpose of the Vallum, but it did add a lot of work to building their defenses.  Sheep and lambs were all around.  The rain continues on and off all afternoon.  At one point, we took off our rain jackets, but ended up putting them on again.

Three years ago, we visited Hadrian's Wall with Indy & Kira, on a driving trip from Edinburgh to York.  Today, we came upon the section of wall that we visited.  Just past St. Oswald's church, near Heavensfield, we came upon our first significant section of the wall since Heddon-on-the-Wall.  It looked familiar!  We played here, near Planetrees, three years ago.  Kira tried to pet sheep in the surrounding fields and failed.  It was very fun to revisit this place again!

It is funny.  Often when we talk to a local British resident, they are amazed that Americans know about Hadrian's Wall.  "How did you learn about it?," they often ask.  It is a bit embarrassing to realize that they think we know so little of their history or any history.  Generally, they are probably right though.

Nice shot of Carol at Planetrees section of the wall,

Stuart, our host at last night's B&B, told us of a short-cut to take into Chollerford.  We walked along the highway for a brief time and crossed the Tyne River once again to enter Chollerford.  It was raining again as we made our way to Chesters Fort.  This is a nicely excavated Roman fort that was located at this site, adjacent to Hadrian's Wall.  We spent about an hour see the excavated ruins, then called our hostess for the night to pick us up, as instructed.

Margaret Locke picked up our wet and muddy bunch and transported us to Hallbarns, our B&B for the night.  The first thing we did was take off our muddy shoes and wet coats.  Our hostess put them in the "drying room."  We put on warm, dry socks and met in the parlor to have tea and cakes in front of the fire.  It felt so good!

While warming up, we met another "walker" who is following the same route we are traveling.  Jay, from Virginia, chatted with us over tea, then joined us for dessert after dinner.

Dinner was lovely, prepared by Margaret.  We had fish, with lots of vegetables -- cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes and carrots.  Dessert was cherry pie with ice cream.  Simple, filling and delicious.

We are all relaxing now.  It looks like the weather will improve throughout the day tomorrow.  At the very least, it will be nice to start with dry shoes!