End of the Trail

Tuesday, July 15th – 14 miles to Bowness on Solway. Our last day of hiking!

My feet, knees, and hips felt achy today – was I getting sick? Kathie and I slowed down after lunch (just past Burgh on Sands where there’s a statue of Edward I).

Supposedly, he died in a battle against Robert the Bruce in 1307. Kathie thinks he died of dysentery. Ick. He must not have washed his hands after taking off his trail-muddied boots.

Earlier in the day, cows (actually, I think they were young bulls) chased us all out of their pasture. Then after lunch, several young bulls blocked our way on the path and gave us the evil eye. We just kept our heads down and hustled by to the road. What’s with these guys?

We passed a fortified house, chatted with a lady about flowers and shopping in Jenners (Edinburgh) and stopped in the Highland Laddie pub for sodas before the final stretch.

Then we followed a nice road along the tidal flats, where there were lots of birds and sheep. You can see Scotland across the River Eden!



This guy was haafnet fishing. (From the Dictionary of Ichthyology: "Haaf net = a Scottish salmon net in the form of a large bag on a frame (5 m by 1 m). It is held by hand in tidal areas until a salmon is felt entering and then lifted to catch the fish. Haaf is from the Norwegian for open sea.") The next day we learned that you can actually walk across the flats here to Scotland when the tide's out. You just have to watch out for the quicksand. Yikes!

We ended victoriously in Bowness on Solway in a little lean-to shelter.

Veni, vidi, vici!

Anybody know what this means? Hail, Maia? I thought these guys were Roman!?!!!

We stayed in another lovely B&B, a nice place called The Old Rectory. This was our bathroom. Luxury!

After dinner at the King’s Arms Pub,



...we checked out St. Michael’s cemetery.

Kathie went back out for her traditional sunset photo and met up with a hedgehog.



It’s a good thing she didn't meet up with something bigger and more ferocious. She woulda been on her own because I was sacked out when she finally got back.

Of course, Kathie had to take her traditional end-of-the-trail boots photo.

The next morning, we caught a ride back to Carlisle with the father of the King’s Arms owner. As we passed the scenery we'd walked by the afternoon before, I cried silently to myself. I'd say I was just being overly emotional because I was tired, except I've been missing England and Scotland ever since we got back. WAH!!!

More Mud, The Mayor, Hugh Grant's Father, and a Nave

Monday, July 14th – 11 miles to Carlisle

More pasture land to Crosby on Eden.

I have never seen so much mud in my life.

We sat in a bus stop shelter to eat our packed lunch. An older gentleman came across the street from his house and chatted with us. He invited the group of older hikers behind us to eat their packed lunches at his house. What a character! Wonder if he was the mayor…

What kind of story do you suppose he was telling us that I had such a look on my face?

Just before Carlisle, we crossed over the Eden River. Kathie chatted up the firemen who were observing rescue practice going on below. I suppose they thought she has a sexy voice too. :) What a flirt!

Then we had a little difficulty finding our B&B, the Abberley House, where the owner/host/manager looked and acted just like Hugh Grant's father (although none of us know Hugh Grant's dad...). Kathie noticed it first.

I couldn't look at the man after that without snickering.

Kathie and I shared a postage stamp sized room, which was a far cry better than what Hugh's dad had for Hisako and Tetsu – no room at all! (He did find them a place up the street.)

After dinner at a Greek restaurant, we visited the Carlisle cathedral. The nave was topped by a beautiful darkish blue barrel vaulted ceiling, the panels of which were decorated with golden stars and suns. Lots of wood carvings adorned the whole place and there was a Norman chapel from the 12th century!


(Several of the above pics were taken by Joan and are saved on her SmugMug site. I'm too tired to figure out which ones.)

Flossies, Bossies, pint virgins, and pick-up lines

Sunday, July 13th – 8 miles to Walton
This morning, we passed (besides lots of pasture, poop, and mud) Birdoswald...


In the side yard, Joan spotted this heart-shaped hole in a tree stump. That Joan!

This is a nifty place at Bankshead where hikers can "camp" for five pounds a night. It's all furnished with a kitchenette, dishes, pots and pans, a table - the works!

We, however, stayed overnight at the Low Rigg Farm - a working farm of the Thompson family.

Nice view, eh?

On our way back out to dinner, we passed a bunch of Flossies and Bossies queued up to be milked.
We ate dinner at the Centurion Pub.

An older guy at the bar called Kathie a pint virgin when she bellied up to the bar and ordered her first pint ever, and then he took her out on the back patio and pointed to Cold Fell where her beer was made.

Sounded like just another pick up strategy to me. More successful was the young guy telling her that she has a sexy voice. Kathie blushed. Heh heh.

Plebes and Punky Girls

Saturday, July 12th – 9 miles to Gilsland
Today I wore the boots again and took some Aleve to reduce the inflammation. The Aleve helped a lot until it started to wear off…

Former blogging buddy August Caesar had suggested we visit Vindolanda, a Roman fort just south of Once Brewed by about a mile. Joan and Tetsu weren’t all that interested in Vindolanda, so they set out on their own for Gilsland.

Kathie, Hisako, and I took the Hadrian’s Wall bus, the AD122 (get it?), to Vindolanda, which is a pretty cool place.
This was a public bath in the fort.

The ruins are being excavated and there’s a museum that displays some of what has been found so far – correspondence, etc. We only had a short while before we had to hop back on the bus, though, or we’d be late getting to Gilsland. On the bus there was a gentleman (guide?) who had a plebe helmet – a very heavy, steel plebe helmet. With the mohawk and everything! He let us try it on. I thought to myself, “Joan is going to be disappointed that she missed the plebe helmet!”
Yes, that's Craig the snickerer. We picked him up (again!) in Vindolanda.
I think that's a milemarker we're standing next to.

Back on the trail, the walk was very strenuous at the beginning, but there were stunning views from the top of Winshield Crags, and there was a lot of the wall still in place. These made up for the up and down and up and down on the muddy, rocky crags.
At one point, we passed Thirlwall Castle just beyond a nice little brook. Then we parted ways with Craig, not to see him again. I think he was tired of us old ladies, especially after Kathie fired him as our mapreader.
I was thrilled when we walked into Gilsland and ecstatic when we finally found our B&B, Hill on the Wall. When we walked into the yard, I noticed white sheets hanging on the clothes line. A late 16th century manor with three foot thick walls, it was so wonderful and beautifully decorated on the inside. Kathie and I had “Hadrian’s Retreat”, a second floor bedroom that faces out over sheep pastureland (in the morning we watched a sheepherding dog at work – too cool!) with a huge bathroom across the hall. Ah, towel racks that warm your towels! But I digress…

After we lugged our bags upstairs, I threw myself down on the bed. Joan and Tetsu had gotten in much earlier and were showered and ready to go back down to Gilsland for dinner. “No way!” Fortunately, the owner of the B&B was driving into the village and offered us a ride, so we shoehorned ourselves into her little car and went down to the Samson Pub for dinner. There we noticed some young girls all dressed in pink with 80s-ish punked hair and wearing stiletto heels.
We asked the barlady if this is how the kids dressed usually, and she told us that they were celebrating the 18th birthday of one of the girls. They looked so grown up and punky, but were very sweet.
Also at dinner, Tetsu told us that he had kept up with Joan all day. No small achievement, I tell you.

A Day Worth Ruined Mizunos

Friday, July 11th – 12 miles to Once Brewed
This morning, my boot was KILLING my ankle. Kathie diagnosed the problem as an inflamed tendon. Moleskin – no matter how I cut or applied it – did nothing to alleviate the pain. The only thing to do was wear my sneakers. My brand spanking new, bright white, $95 Mizuno sneakers. Yikes! It’s muddy (read “poopy”) out there! Nothing else to be done though, so we set off. Pretty shortly, I’d plunged both feet into cold water, which was actually kind of refreshing!

Lots of mud, climbing up and down hills and over stone walls, spectacular views of crags, lochs (spelled "loughs"), moor, pastureland, ruins and Hadrian’s Wall (finally!), etc.

Mithraic temple and fake altar stone (the original is in a museum in Newcastle)
The white dots are sheep!



Lunch in a pasture. The extra person is Craig, the snickerer from the evening before. In spite of his snickering, he turned out to be a nice guy!

Housesteads Fort up ahead

Milecastle 37

Bromlee Lough and Kennel Crags

Toward the end of the day, Kathie and I missed a sign and took a little detour on the “military road”, Kathie called it. (Actually, the military road was about a quarter of a mile south of the path we were on, but “military road” sounds more glamorous when you’re stupid enough to miss a path sign.) Our detour was much easier going than the up and down of the trail, but we missed some of the best views on the trail.

Kathie started singing, which was very unusual. I don’t remember ever hearing her sing before - ever. So I began singing too. We paused, however, somewhere between “The Happy Wanderer” and “Yellow Submarine” or “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” – when we noticed that we could again see Joan, Hisako, and Tetsu hiking along the trail up to the right of where we were walking. It looked like Joan was on her hands and knees trying to scale a crag. Boy, was I glad we’d gotten lost. The three of them and Craig abandoned the trail and descended to our path through the moor. We slogged the rest of the way downhill and through a stream to get to the road to Once Brewed.

Sycamore Gap, the Robin Hood Tree, and three of our buddies

Before going to our B&B, the Vallum Lodge Hotel, though, we stopped for dinner at the Twice Brewed Inn. (The Twice Brewed Inn is just across the street and up a little way from Once Brewed. Don’t know what was brewed in either place - most likely beer. Funny town names in England.) When we finally arrived at our B&B, the hostess (Ann Lock) took our shoes/boots to dry in the kitchen and washed our socks for us. What an angel! Of course, my sneakers were filthy, soaked, and unrecognizable by now...but my ankle - and I - were both happy.

The Day I'd Been Dreading for Months

Thursday, July 10th. 15 miles to Wall. I had been dreading this day for months, wondering if I was in good enough shape to keep putting one foot in front of the other for fifteen miles.

It turned out to be a lovely cow and sheep day.

On Ms. Jacqueline's front porch, I slipped into the high-top boots Kathie had grown out of after she'd thoroughly broken them in. We donned our rain gear, and set off through cropland – some sort of grain. Not being farm people, none of us knew what the grain was, but it sure was purty – especially with orangey red poppies volunteering here and there.
We looked for the wall, vallum, and forts, but there wasn’t much to see. What the heck is a vallum anyway?

I slipped going down a muddy, poopy hill and caught myself from landing on my butt by landing on my hands instead – special.
Stanley Plantation – fairy forest! Where are the leprechauns?

Walk, walk, walk! Thank God for moleskin. By now I was layering it on my heel and left ankle.

We stopped at Heavenfield and looked around. St. Oswald Chapel sits atop a hillock in the field where the Saxons and Celts waged a fierce battle in 635 A.D. The site is kinda eerie. Or maybe I was just tired.
By the time we found the Hadrian Hotel in Wall, my knees were stiff as a board. This “hotel” was pretty dumpy too but again the people were nice.
Kathie and I had to share a bed but I was so doggone tired I could have slept standing up.

In the bar/restaurant downstairs, Kathie asked the barmaid about local beers that might be similar to Corona. What is there about us Americans that we expect people in other countries to know what we’re talking about when we ask for a Corona? We noticed that the guy behind us – another American - was snickering.

After dinner, Kathie and I found some muscle soak stuff on the edge of the tub in the public bathroom on our floor. We promptly filled up the tub with hot water and some muscle soak, and sat on the tub rim soaking our poor puppies. I also tried to massage out my shin splints. Notice I said “tried”.

(Photos of me getting ready to fall on my butt and the leprechaun forest were taken by Joan. The rest were taken by Kathie and me.)

On to Heddon

Wednesday, July 9th, was a 10 mile walk to Heddon. It would have been a 15 mile walk if we hadn't done the 5 mile walk the day before. Fifteen miles on our first day out would have been a killer.

On Wednesday morning, we took the metro to where we'd left off the trail the evening before. From here, we walked along the Tyne River – past the rest of Newcastle, office buildings, car dealerships, etc. Once, we got lost by (my) ignoring a trail sign and going way the heck out of our way up the A1. A nice postie straightened us out - plus we asked directions a couple more times! After getting back on the trail, we sat in the grass of a field/park to eat lunch. Walking farther along the river, we saw swans swimming and a lovely recreation area.



Approaching Heddon, we turned up the hill to go to our bed and breakfast, but Joan decided to go further up the river path to check out George Stephenson’s cottage. The rest of us cut across a golf course (Fore!) and trudged, trudged, trudged up to our B&B, the Heddon Lodge.
Our hostess, Jacqueline Ryan, let us collapse in her patio furniture and brought us out hot tea and KitKat bars – it all tasted wonderful! Our room was very, very nice. Ms. Jacqueline said she had rented out her home to a Newcastle football (read “soccer”) player and his family, who had utterly trashed the place. Jacqueline had obviously put a lot of home improvement time in since then.
Joan finally arrived around 5:30 or 6 – she hadn’t been able to find the B&B. (This would not be the last time we’d have difficulty finding our lodging…) Then we went for dinner at the Swan Carvery. The vegetables were cooked almost beyond recognition. (Also not the last time…)
The following morning, Ms. Jacqueline cooked and served us breakfast, then left for work...
...and we left for Chollerford/Wall.

(Postie photo from Joan's smugmug page . All other photos taken by Kathie.)

Start of the Trail

This is the first installment of my notes dump from the Hadrian's Wall trek...

On Tuesday, July 8th, we took the train to Newcastle, England, which was a two hour ride from Edinburgh, and then the metro to Hadrian’s Lodge Hotel at Wallsend. The “hotel” was a little dumpy but the folks were nice. We walked to lunch at a local pub, where the guys at the bar said “GEEZ!” when I told them we’re doing the trail in seven days. (Kathie’s comment – “Loved the pubs!”)
After lunch, we visited the reconstructed wall portion across the street from Segedunum. Segedunum was a fort, the layout of which is on the ground. It was kinda hard to imagine what the actual fort was like.
Then we walked five miles along the Tyne river, where there were lots of wild flowers – foxglove, thistles, stinging nettle (OUCH!). Tetsu did lots of sneezing; Hisako snapped lots of flower pics.
Finally, we came to Newcastle. On the river is a pedestrian bridge that the locals call the “winking eye” – the semicircular pedestrian walkway arcs up to “close” on the superstructure archway to let river traffic through. Quite cool.
This is just one of about seven or eight bridges in this smallish city. On the other side of the river is the Sage Gateshead, a center for musical education, performance and conferences, which struck me as a glass version of the sandworms in the Dune trilogy. Weird but nifty.We hiked up to the castle, then on to find dinner at a little Greek restaurant called Café Neon. Quite good it was, too! Afterward, we walked to the metro station for a train back to the lodge. There were oodles and gobs of flowers in front of the train station – most impressive. Why can't we have flowers in front of our train stations?