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).