Day 0

Today consisted of a long bus ride from London to Carlisle. It was mostly uneventful, which is how I want my mass transit: as planned. I got to see the landscape change from urban to country. Except for a stop over in the rather dirty looking Birmingham, it was nice to ride through. We got a nice view of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, which looks like it would be a harshly beautiful hike. Near late afternoon, we made it Carlisle, the first stop on our walk of Hadrian’s Wall.

Day 1 – 14 miles

Started the day with my first English breakfast. Thumbs ups to the eggs and mushrooms, but everything else was either too greasy or weird. Beans and grilled tomatoes for breakfast? Nah. Also the bacon was thinly sliced ham, a Canadian cousin? Or now that I think about it, where the Canadians got it from? I didn’t touch the black pudding, because I still can’t get over that its made from coagulated pigs blood and suet. Plus who knew what it would do to my stomach and me not being near a bathroom all day is not a situation I wanted to be in.

After breakfast a taxi drove us to the start point: Bowness-on-Solway. An unassuming parking lot housed the trail marker. The sun was bright and the wind was whipping. Towards the north was a waterway I never got the name of, and the land on the other side was Scotland!. We got our pics and started along a grassy path near the water. The tide was out, so the view was more mudflats than water. I could see a network of seagull footprints.

The trail went inland towards a roman fort museum where we got our first stamp. Then it was a walk along a road trying to dodge cars on the “wrong” side of the road. The water views gave way to grassy fields and occasional shaded lanes. I was grateful for the shade because I forgot to bring my sunglasses (they’re prescription) and the sun was unexpectedly very bright. There were cute little cottages and ye olde churches with graveyard full of indecipherable gravestones.

Near lunch time Tanya and I made it to a path that cut near a bunch of sheep fields who didn’t seem to have any fenced off boundaries. So there was sheep shit everywhere. The side of the path was lined with prickly Hawthorne and stinging nettle, which made for an rather unpleasant walking experience. We found a spot free of visible mounds of fecal matter near the road and ate lunch.

The hotel we stayed at packed us a lunch (that we paid for by the way) which consisted of a “sandwich”, crisps (chips) and a biscuit (cookie). I was dubious about the sandwich because it was just literally turkey and butter on white bread. Apparently that is how they make sandwiches in England. Cheese is occasionally added, but no veggies of any kind. I wonder what that is about?

We started back up toward Carlisle and eventually made our way back to town. My feet were crackling with fiery pain by the time we met concrete. I lamented my decision to not buy new shoes. Tanya seemed to be having trouble with her shoes as well. It was lucky we were back in moderately sized town who’d have some shopping options.

We made it back to the hotel and it was so nice to be able to chill indoors! I could get used to this! Dinner consisted of a bag of pancakes from Asda. Yes they sold pancakes in a bag, and you know what, they were pretty good.

Day 2 – 14 miles

Some may be wondering why I’m using miles while the British use metric. You know, apparently that switch wasn’t too long ago and I met plenty of British folk who still used miles. Also I’m just used to measuring my steps in miles and trying to switch to km doesn’t feel right – my body knows miles not kilometers.

Anywhoozle, we started out late so Tanya could find some new shoes. Her current boots were too small and stiff. There was a sports store on our way out of town where she was able to pick up some better footwear and I picked up some insoles. Appropriately fitted out, we started along a river path and it was already humid and gross.

There were a few shady spots: lanes with oaks and border shrubs. We passed through cute little hamlets, literally. One such spot in Newton & White Flatt won “Best Tidy Village” in 2013. Hamlets. Villages. It was all so quaint!

We passed along a part of “the wall” where you could see the mounds and ditches where the wall would have been if it was still there. We haven’t actually seen the wall yet in fact, just ghostly imprints in the land. We did see however, a lot of sheep and cows. The cows made me think of the comic “The Farside”. I don’t know why, these particular cows seemed to have that attitude. Also walked through a pack of horses who wanted to gnaw on my pack.

There was a little hut in the afternoon that we stopped at with fresh cold bottles of water. It also had a mailbox from Queen Victoria’s time. They put the initials of the current reigning monarch on the postal boxes, so Tanya made it a bit of a game to find ones that were rare. You’d see a lot of “E R” around because of course Queen Elizabeth had such a long reign. It was a surprise to see the “V R” and it was a nice break.

The path started to get a bit rough, with steep inclines through slippery grassy hillsides. We had to keep a bit of a pace since we were meeting a cab to take us to our accommodations in Brampton. So there wasn’t time to take it easy. Near the end of our day we finally came to a bit of the WALL! Finally! An actual piece of Hadrian’s Wall in the physical. Also, it was supposed to be the tallest bit of the wall left intact. We stopped for a second to take some pictures and ohh/ahh over ancient stones stacked in a particular manner. It seemed that Tanya had a little bit more gas left in her tank and was able to scoot along and meet the taxi before I got there.

We got shuttled to the Howards Arms Inn and I got to take another shower!! Such luxuries. Also there was a restaurant downstairs that served the usual pub fare.