Walking Hadrian's Wall

We finished the walk of Hadrian's Wall. It was great to see the wall, even though the weather often wasn't so good. But I think if you wait in England for the weather to change you will never go.

Thursday we drove to Newcastle and left the car with dear friends from the ship: Heather and Colin.

Friday we took the bus to Brampton/Walton. As we arrived at the market place in Brampton, they just had a Easter service there. We joined and were afterwards invited to hot cross Buns, lovely to start our 5 day journey. Then we set off. Our backpacks very soooo heavy, I really forgot from hiking part of the Appalachian Trail, how heavy backpacks can be...
It was honestly a bit boring in the beginning, because there wasn't any wall. We saw it the first time after...........................

We stayed in the woods over night close to Birdoswald where an old roman fort is. Our little selfmade camping cooker (made out of 2 Coca Cola tines) worked fine and we had our hot ravioli. The night was very, very cold and it rained most of the time. So we had to be wrapped up... I even had my cap and scarf on in the sleeping bag. I guess we did not sleep a lot.

Raviolli for dinner, hot Oatmeal for Breakfast

Next day, because the weather was still not so great, we packed a wet tent and our stuff and off we went again. After a few miles, we decided to take the bus towards our final destination (Once/Twice Brewed) were we had a 'Camping Pod' rented for 2 nights.


Easter Sunday: We took the bus back to were we stopped (which was close to Thirwall Castle) walking the day before and walked back to our accomodation. Wow, it was great to see the wall and to imagine how the romans felt in AD 122.
It was so cold in the camping pod, brrrrr. But we were still glad, that we did not have to sleep in the tent, because it was raining very much. We could hear the wind howling, our sleep wasn't very deep ...

Easter Monday: I have learned one thing since I have lived for a while in England : Until you wait for the weather to change, you never go out. So despide the rain we took off and after one hour we were absolute tranged. But then it stopped and the wind tried our cloths. At least we saw: Steel Rigg and could walk further along the wall.


Tuesday: We took all our stuff with us again and went to Hexham. After we found an accomodation for the night, we took the bus to Chollerford and walked back Hexham. Because of the camping side was rain locked and the forcast was rain again over night we looked for an accomodation which we found over a pub. Hm, never stayed in a pub before, I thought it might be loud etc. But it was very pleasant, and we were surprised how spacious and good the room looked. Great dinner: After having almost every night soup, I enjoyed my PIZZA :-)

Today (I wrote all this last Wednesday, the same day we finished the walk. Only today, I had time to put the pictures to it) we looked around in Hexham and then took the bus back to Heather and Colins place were we stay overnight.

I am actually surprised that my muscles aren't aching anymore, and I am already thinking about where we could walk tomorrow :-)



Crag Lough: Lake at Steel Rigg

Thirwall Castle


Housesteads: big roman fort and the Milecastle 37

Walltown and Cawfields

My favourite parts of the whole trail was between Thrillwall Castle (is by Greenhead), Walltown, Cawfields, Housesteads over towards Chesters.

Afterwards we drove to Scottland to Dumfries, Kirkcudbright to spend the weekend with our friend Ann (big Thanks!) from the ship. It was lovely, we had a great time. I could actually spend Saturday afternoon sitting on her settee and do Sudoku, drink a glass of wine and just relax and enjoy life.


Old Pottery (Kilns) in Corbridge and we in Newcastle upon Tyne with The Tyne Bridge and The Sage in the background

Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Newcastle upon Tyne