Hadrian’s Wall Day 2 from Carlisle to Banks



The best advice today comes from Dory in Finding Nemo (with a small twist):

Just keep walking …

Up and through yet another kissing gate into another pasture. Greg is impressed with the gate's simple design. 

When Greg got up today he packed 2 rain jackets because the forecast was for rain all day. But by the time we left, all the rain was gone from the forecast. The weather changes fast here!

At breakfast we met a 75 year old English lady who is walking the wall path for her 15th time! She said the biggest problem on the path is the lack of toilets. It is interesting that she brought it up because there was only one bathroom on the path today. That's crazy! It's a good thing you can't buy beer anywhere or that would be a quandary.

A walker gave us a list of bathrooms and water taps along the path

No toilets along the path is a serious problem. The few that there are inevitably not timed with your bladder. I don't know why anyone would need to refill their water? I don't dare drink - what good it is to have a water tap when you don't have anywhere to excrete your used water??

As we started this morning, Greg was wondering if people meet up and walk together. Literally within the hour we met up with 2 Germans and spent over an hour walking together. We had been following them the day before - they are fast walkers! They clarified that you always go straight until a sign points you otherwise. Now we won't get confused anymore (and no longer need to follow them). Man, knowing where you are going sure does take all the fun out of the walk!

We met up with 2 guys from Stuttgart

At times following the acorn signs along the path feels like you are going the wrong way!

Before we left on the trip, when Greg was checking in with his parents and they wanted to make sure we would be ok - Greg assured them there are lots of people walking the path. Ummm, don't panic mom and dad, but that's not exactly true. We hardly see a dozen people a day. I expect the next 2 days to be significantly more crowded since that is where all the Roman sites are.

There are so many different ways to do the wall path. The old lady has her husband drive her and pick her up each day - except the first night that she spends in Carlisle. The Germans we met are staying 2 days at Carlisle and then 4 in Chollerford - and using bus AD122 to get to their hotel each night.

Today's walk is so peaceful 

There is no food along the path today so we ate our picnic lunch next to the weir in the shade of the trees - the spot author Henry recommends in his Hadrian's Wall book. A British person would say "it was quite lovely." There is a bench to sit on to enjoy your lunch / the view and it is inscribed: See something beautiful everyday.

The bench holds good advice: See something beautiful everyday.

Our view - the weir along Hadrian's Wall just passed Newtown. So peaceful. 

Right after the weir, we came to a Roman ditch. To the naked eye it looked just like a regular ditch, but if you are carrying a Hadrian's Wall map, you know otherwise.

The Roman ditch you come to just after the weir 

"It's not everyday you eat lunch in a Roman ditch" I said to the guy we passed, who had found a tree stump to rest on. "That's right." (And then he quickly added…) "But it will be this week."

Today's walk was very serene and easygoing. We walked by less sheep and more cows than yesterday - so I discovered that Greg is not a fan of walking with big bovine.  "Did we make it?" he asked when we passed the cows unscathed. "Just don't make eye contact," he warned me. I think he has Bovinophobia. We were talking with a path volunteer (he walks his section once each month) who warned, "well you never know with cows. One starts running and then they all start running straight at you." Omg it is a good thing I didn't know that yesterday and he was telling us after we passed through our last pasture of the day!!

Them some happy cows. And they didn't even notice Greg. (I don't know what he is so worried about.)

Near the end of our day, we finally found beer at the Old Vicarage Brewery in Walton

Our first uphill part of the path was not a welcomed sight at the end of our day. We survived. 

Along the path are "honesty boxes" selling snacks and drinks. The one at Haytongate Farm is a shed.

Woohoo! Jumping for joy ... We made it to the first visible part of the wall!  Yes, we came all this way for this!

The remaining wall is not quite the original, which stood around 20ft high and just under 10ft wide

Picture from the signpost showing what it would have originally looked like. Game of Thrones fans would be interested to know that George R.R. Martin's inspiration for his enormous wall came from a visit to Hadrian's Wall, though he built his wall 3 times as long and 700 feet high, and made it out of ice. 

With the reward of seeing the wall, we could stop for the day. Today we walked 14 3/4 miles. It wasn't hard but it was more tiring than yesterday since there was no recovery time. It is so nice to have no responsibility except to just walk through the countryside all day.

Tonight we are staying about 2-3 miles off the wall in Brampton. Anything near the wall at this section doesn't have food so we had to go to Brampton for dinner anyway - it just made sense to stay in a nice place (Scotch Arms Mews). Since we don't have international calling with our phone plan, rather than call for a taxi, I arranged to be picked up by Brian / Atkinson via email atkinsoncoaches@aol.com. Around here their bread and butter is driving kids to school so they are busy 7-9am and 2-4pm but they drive walkers outside of those times.

If you are doing the walk without a tour company and wondering what to do with your bags - contact Hadrian's Bags info@hadriansbags.co.uk. For only £7 per bag, per stage (section/day), Mark will make your bags magically appear at your next hotel.