Walking Hadrian's Wall Day 1 from Bowness-on-Solway to Carlisle
Greg and I are walkers. Every day after work and every weekend morning we walk. We enjoy the exercise, the time outdoors, and the opportunity to talk and decompress from work. So going on a walking vacation was a no-brainer for us: walking through beautiful countryside each day, staying at local B&Bs by night, stopping at pubs along the way, in an area rich with history. It is the epitome of how we like to spend our vacations!
What is Hadrian's Wall?
Hadrian's Wall is an 84-mile-long National Trail through some of Britain's most beautiful countryside. It's a popular misconception that Hadrian's Wall marks the border between England and Scotland but in fact it stretches coast to coast across northern England, from Bowness-on-Solway on the west coast to Wallsend in the east, and can normally be walked in 6-7 days.
The wall was built 80 Roman miles long in AD 122. That makes it just a wee bit old! 80 Roman miles is only 73 modern miles but the trail itself doesn't always exactly follow the Wall which is why it is slightly longer, at 84 miles.
The wall was built at the height of the Roman Empire by Emperor Hadrian to mark the Northern limit of their Empire and keep the marauding hordes of northern Britannia at bay.
Although I did all of the planning and reservations for our trip, there are many companies out there that will do it all for you for not very much money. Either way, I highly recommend you get the book Hadrian's Wall Path by Henry Stedman. It suggests all sorts of places you can stay, which came too late for me, and gives a detailed map of the entire route.
You'll want this guidebook for the walk!
I enlarged the maps from the book so I could write on them
The first thing you need to decide is which direction you want to go. The most common direction used to be east to west (following the actual construction timeline of the wall) but that has since changed to west to east, which is the direction we are going. For me the biggest factors in this decision was lodging availability and having the wind at our backs. (Though today the wind came from our right side.)
Next you'll need to decide how many days to take, or how many miles to walk each day. Again, mostly driven by where we could spend the night, we are going to walk an average of 15 miles per day for 6 days.
We woke up so excited for our big day - starting the walk! After a traditional hearty English breakfast, we had a taxi take us to the starting point in Bowness-on-Solway. We aren't normally taxi people but it is Sunday which means the bus isn't running and there is no other way to get there. If you need a taxi, I highly recommend Sally at Airstream Taxi 07808 778599 pacificmeltdown@gmail.com. She responds quickly and is very helpful.
Our stay at Warick Lodge including a hearty traditional English breakfast - good fuel for our long walk!
Sally / Airstream Taxi dropped us off at the start of the Hadrian's Wall path signpost pointing 84 miles to Wallsend
This hut on Banks Promenade marks the official western end of the path
Ready to go! We start at the Solway Firth - the body of water that forms part of the border between England and Scotland
The biggest game for us was trying to stay on the path. Pretty much it is marked every time you have to turn but it isn't that simple before you get the hang of it - which even after one day I can't say we have. There really isn't anything to worry about; we never got lost or went out of our way. I had the paper map from the book which was a little helpful (pictured above). We cheated a lot by referring to Greg's All Trails app since it uses GPS.
"How did we miss that?" Greg asked when we realized we were going the wrong way when the path turned to tall, impassable weeds.
I took this picture to show how quickly the path turns to mud. Keep your wits about you or you'll miss the turns in the path! Distracted, we missed the path's kissing gate (center of photo).
We didn't know what to expect from the terrain. Today's segment has no existing part of the wall. We walked along the road and through a lot of pastures. After the first dozen gates, you lose count of how many you have passed through.
You won't see any physical wall today. In the more populated parts of the country the stones from the wall were "recycled" into buildings like this one - Drumburgh Castle
Walking through a "kissing gate" - cleverly designed to keep livestock in
The problem with walking through pastures is all the land mines of poop you are trying to avoid. We were wondering where the poop was from - and found the culprits.
Walking through all the pastures, you have to keep your eyes on the ground so you don't slip in the animal droppings
Trying to be good wall-walkers, we walked through the kissing gates ... and then realized the main gate was wide open. I'm sure the sheep had a good laugh!
This section of the path is fairly less interesting than the rest. There is a lot of road walking which I don't particularly like. I prefer to walk side by side.
When you walk along the Solway Estuary, be aware of the high tide schedule. About three times per year the road is flooded and impassible for 2 hours. If the tide is above 9 meters you cannot cross. Check the tide here: https://tides.willyweather.co.
It started to rain at 1pm. It didn't matter at all. Although it is so much nicer to walk without it, we just put on our rain jackets and kept plugging along. My rainproof jacket, pants, and shoes did their job!
We walked in the light rain for about an hour
News headline: California Couple Trampled Alive Along Hadrian's Wall
I thought we were just walking through another pasture when all of a sudden I heard a thundering sound and looked up to see about 30 cows running towards us! I stopped recording when the one was coming straight at me - yikes!!
Our motivation, reward, and resting point was our lunch plans - reservations at Dover's Rest pub in Monkhill. We had to detour off the trail to get to it. The book suggested it was the best food on the entire trail. I hope not; that isn't saying much for all the other establishments.
I read that Drover's Rest is the best pub along the whole path. (It is a slight detour off the path.)
The food at Drover's Rest looks amazing!
The lady eating at the pub took one look at me and said to her husband that I was walking the path - an instant conversation starter. I think the hiking shoes gave me away? Apparently they are not part of the Sunday lunch dress code.
At 2:40 pm Greg said we could stay at the pub until 6:00 pm when we have an hour window with no rain to run the 3 1/2 miles to Carlisle. Fortunately the forecast was wrong and it only rained another 30 minutes.
The 3 miles of pathway outside of Carlisle are lush and gorgeous! I would walk it everyday if I lived there!
Although the walk from Bowness-on-Solway to Carlisle is 14 miles, today we went 17.2 miles by the time we ventured off the path for lunch and then walked to our B&B. We averaged a pace under 18-minute miles which is a little unnecessarily fast but I miscalculated the time it would take to get to our lunch reservation and we didn't want to miss it.
Overall today was so much fun. Walking along Hadrian's Wall path was an adventure!
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