Category Great Britain
Sheep May Safely Graze; Romans May Safely Bathe
Every morning is a touch of déjà vu, as we return in the car to yesterday’s drop off point. Neither of us lingered at Brocolitia; Ian was keen to get underway and finish a bit earlier. My plans for the day were looser. The first stop was Chesters Roman Fort, a few minutes along the […]
Ian’s Hadrians Wall Walk Day 4
As expected, today was difficult due to the climbs required, but also probably the “best” bit of the walk. All off-road walking with 18 km covered in just under 6 hours (including a 1 km walk “off-route” to get my walk passport stamp at Housesteads). The Romans knew that defence was all about having the […]
Driving Myself Up The Wall
Ian returned to his walk for day 4, from Cawfields Milecastle to Brocolitia. This section is well served by a series of off road car parks with plenty of things to see nearby each one, so I visited the new Sill Discovery Centre and bought myself a day pass. Then I drove back west to […]
Return to Seaton Sluice
Back in 2018 when we were last in Northumberland, we spent a memorable evening in Seaton Sluice, on the coast. We were there for midweek orienteering (as is our custom when in the UK), but the evening’s highlight was our dinner – and dessert – at the Kings Arms Hotel. The owner is coeliac and […]
Wall To Wall Wall
We packed up and said goodbye to Carlisle, relieved not to have to perform contortions to park the car any more. I dropped Ian off at Banks East, pausing to watch the mist rising slowly from the valley floor up to the hilltops. The plan was to meet at Steel Rigg in 6 hours’ time. […]
Ian’s Hadrian’s Wall Walk Day 3, Banks to Cawfields
Heading into the middle sections of the walk, the landscape continued to get more scenic with few on-road sections. The drawback was it also got a lot hillier and quite steep in parts, as the wall – and the walk – followed a significant line of crags that run through the area. I also crossed […]
Ian’s Hadrian’s Wall Walk Day 2, Carlisle to Banks
In between days 1 and 2 we had a break to sort out a few car related matters, but I did sneak in an extra 1.7km across Carlisle. So day 2 started in east Carlisle and it was definitely the nicer side of the city. Lots of dog and day walkers out on a sunny […]
Wall
It was perfect weather for walking, so we got up early and Ian was underway by 9am, departing from Trinity Leisure Centre in Carlisle. His goal for today was Banks, about 23 km away. We arranged the pickup time and location, and went our separate ways. Being Sunday, it was an easy drive out of […]
Ian’s Hadrian’s Wall Walk Day 1, Bowness-on-Solway to Carlisle
Hadrian’s Wall was built by the Romans across northern England nearly 2,000 years ago. The modern border between England and Scotland is close to the wall in the area west of Carlisle but far from the border on the other side of the country – the wall goes sort of straight across but the border […]
Stuck
Ian will blog separately about his Hadrian’s Wall trail hike. To start it off, we drove to the tiny village of Bowness-on-Solway, on the southern edge of the Solway Firth. The landscape here was quite different – extensive grasslands and mudflats. Signs warned of flooding the road, but there was no water lapping at the […]
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