Day 5: The End of Hadrian's Wall....

August 24, 2024: It rained a bit during the night and the clouds were ugly in the morning, but I had about 16 miles to finish the trail and with only a few buses the whole day between the end of the trail and Carlisle, I was determined to finish in time to catch--at the very latest--the 5:00pm bus back. I was slackpacking so it was absolutely essential that I didn't get stuck at the end with no way back!

Consequently, despite the ugly clouds, I put on my daypack and hit the road at about 7:00am. I left my full pack with the clerks manning the front desk since I knew I wouldn't make it back before checkout time. I just had too many miles to do to make it back before checkout time, so I checked out and asked them to store my bag for me while I was gone.

Carlisle Castle

 

I took a slightly different route out of town than the one I followed into town to see other landmarks and artwork. It did sprinkle a bit, but only briefly and very lightly, but later in the afternoon it actually cleared up nicely. It was fortunate that the rain wasn't heavier since I still had not had a chance to replace the thrashed umbrella from the storm a few days ago. I had looked for one at a couple of stores in town but came up empty. Why are they hiding them from me?!

Anyhow, although the rain during the night was relatively light and all but non-existent in the morning, the trails were still severely wet and muddy from the biblical floods yesterday morning, and it was at the edge of town where I came to my biggest water obstacle so far. The trail headed through an underpass of a large highway, and it was completely and utterly flooded. The water was murky enough that I couldn't even tell how deep it was, so I started wading into it. First up to my ankles, then up to my knees. I soon found myself with my crown jewels in danger of being flooded and not knowing how much deeper the water would become, I veered off up a side road, climbed a hill to the highway surface, dashed across the highway (probably illegally), then down the other side around the flooded area.

This is the flooded section of trail that required me to scramble up the bank to the highway and back down the other side. The water was just too deep! By the time I reached that fingerpost behind the fence in the photo, I was nearly up to my waist in water. So I veered off trail to the left and up and over the highway bridge rather than continue straight and under the bridge.

 

Other than the water issues, the trail was relatively flat and easy the whole day, and I made good time along it. The trail passed by a couple of more honesty boxes, but I passed them by just to finish the trail quicker.

The last several miles were a road walk into Bowness-on-Solway with lovely views, but I was a little annoyed that it was on a road. Not an especially busy one, but still....

About a mile before the end of the trail, I passed a woman with her child. The child looked like it was just learning how to walk, and I just waved and kept walking.

At the end of the trail, I met a couple of people who were just starting the trail, and I joked that it was wet and muddy and horrible and they should quit while they still could! They knew I was joking, but they asked if I would take a photo of them at the start and they returned the favor by taking a photo of me at the end of the trail.

My photo at the structure that marks the official end of the trail. =)

The couple started their hike, and I sat down to figure out what I was going to do for the next three hours. The next bus to Carlisle didn't arrive for another three hours. It was 2:00pm now, so I had time. A lot of time! Perhaps head to a local pub for a drink and lunch? Read a book and relax?

I know you can't read that sign above my head in the previous photo, so here's a closeup of it. The official end of the Hadrian's Wall Path. =) (The other side of the structure had a similar sign but marking it as the official beginning of the trail.)

 

It wasn't a very satisfying thing for me to do, however, sitting around and waiting for three hours. I very much wanted to get into Carlisle in time to catch a train south to St. Bees where I could spend the night and immediately start hiking the Coast to Coast trail the next morning. But I still needed to buy some food for that, which I wanted to do in Carlisle where there were full-sized supermarkets. But the bus ride back would take an hour, so I wouldn't get back to Carlisle until about 6:00pm, and then if I missed the train that left at about then, I would have to wait a couple of hours for the next train to St. Bees and wouldn't end up arriving until 10:00 (or later!) in the evening. Ugh.

So I considered maybe trying to hitch a ride back to Carlisle. If I failed, I could still catch the bus in the three hours. Or maybe I should just try calling for a taxi. It would probably cost an arm and a leg, but certainly it would be a lot faster. None of my options seemed ideal, though, as I sat at the end of the trail wondering what to do.

The woman with her child that I passed early approached. I was a little surprised to see her. I thought she was a local just enjoying the afternoon with her child and definitely not hiking the trail. She asked if I had just finished the trail... Well, yes, I did, I said.

She asked if I needed a photo. No, I replied, the couple who just left had taken one for me already.

Then she asked if I needed a ride back to Carlisle. What?! Really?! I think my jaw dropped in shock. It never even occurred me to ask about that. She explained that her husband had just started hiking the trail that day and she had dropped him off, but now she needed to drive into Carlisle to meet up with him so she was heading that way already.

I was thrilled! My problems were solved! I felt like she was an angel dropped from heaven!

"I would love a ride back to Carlisle!" I replied, still stunned at the unexpected development. 

She asked if I needed some time or if I was ready to go now, and I told her I could leave right then and there. There was nothing in town I really needed, so we headed off in the direction of her car.

I couldn't believe my luck--I had managed to get a ride back to Carlisle less than 5 minutes after finishing the trail, and less than one minute after meeting this woman. Wow! And it just plopped into my lap, completely unexpected.

Plus, driving to Carlisle in a car would take just a half hour while the bus would have required about an hour, so I'd actually get back into town a full 3.5 hours earlier than I originally expected. Yes! Yes! Yes! Plenty of time to do some grocery shopping, grab something for lunch and catch the earlier train to St. Bees. 

The drive back to Carlisle retraced much of the route I walked--the same road I had walked down--and a half hour later, I was back in Carlisle.

I was ready for lunch, and stopped at the McDonalds mostly because it was fast. I had a few hours, but it was still going to take me some time to eat, shop for groceries, retrieve my pack from the hotel and get my ticket to St. Bees. I had chores to do, and not a minute to waste!

At the McDonalds, I pulled out my guidebook for the Coast to Coast trail and figured the next decent grocery store I'd likely come across was about four days down the trail, so planned to pick up four days worth of food. 

I got sidetracked during the walk to Lidl when I passed by an outfitters. The inserts in my shoes were starting to feel flat and I could definitely use something that felt better. So I headed in and found some new inserts for my shoes.

The rest of the walk to Lidl took a bit longer than expected, but I headed there and did the necessary shopping. I also grabbed a wrap and a Coke for dinner later. I didn't know what would be available once I arrived in St. Bees, if anything at all.

Then I headed back to the hotel where I picked up my full pack--and combined my daypack with my full pack, plus the addition of all the groceries I had just purchased. I also replaced the inserts of my shoes and threw away the old ones.

And finally I headed to the train station where I bought a ticket to St. Bees. The train was 15 minutes late, but that wasn't a big deal. More annoying, I discovered that the previous train to St. Bees had been canceled entirely so now this train was twice as full as it normally would have been, crammed with all the bodies from two trains. 

When the train did pull up, I noticed everyone seemingly piling into the cars at the front of the train, but almost nobody headed toward the cars in the back. Seeing no reason not to, I walked around the mass of people and boarded the train near the back which meant I was able to nab a seat to sit down.

This was my train to St. Bees. (I didn't have a chance to get a photo of it in Carlisle, however. I took this photo after exiting the trail in St. Bees.)

 

Now normally, I'd be perfectly happy to stand up and let a pregnant woman or someone with their kid to take a seat in a crowded train, but I had already walked nearly 20 miles for the day and I did NOT want to stand on the train. I wanted a seat! My feet were tired and sore and damn it, if I wasn't officially handicapped, I certainly felt it in spirit. But I was kind of grateful that everyone piled into the front of the train because there were still a couple of open seats in the back by the time the train started moving so I felt no guilt about taking a seat from someone in more need than myself. If they were standing in the front of the train--and I had little doubt that there were a lot of people standing in the front cars--that was their problem. =)

The train ride was nice, and it lasted about 1.5 hours before arriving in the small hamlet of St. Bees, at which point I walked another mile or so to the campground on the shore and set up my tent at around sunset, just before a light rain started.

All-in-all, I was thrilled with how well the end of the Hadrian's Wall worked out. I was camped just a five minute walk away from the start of the Coast to Coast trail, which I'd take my first steps on tomorrow....

I saw this rainbow looking back at St. Bees while walking to the campground outside of St. Bees.

The only evidence of the wall were a few boulders pulled out of the river where the wall crossed the River Eden on a bridge.

Rivers still looked especially high and muddy!

Very muddy trail today!

A whole bunch of cattle were being herded down this road.

Day 4: Biblical Floods

August 23, 2024: For most of the night, it rained lightly, but by morning the rain fell in torrents! It pounded the tent in sheets. To say it was raining cats and dogs would be an understatement. It was raining elephants and blue whales! The noise of the rain hitting my tent was deafening, but the tent did its job keeping me high and dry.

I decided that I definitely couldn't hike in this weather--it just wasn't practical. So I read my Kindle and watched Netflix shows on my phone to kill the time, but by around 8:00, the rain started to slow and eventually puttered to a stop allowing me to start hiking again at 9:10am. A bit of a late start, but well worth the delay to avoid that biblical storm. Exiting the tent, I imagined I must have felt a bit like Noah finally leaving his ark.

The trail was super wet and muddy today! So much water, so much mud....

 

The trail today was extraordinarily wet and muddy. I couldn't say that I was surprised given the heavy storm that passed through, but it was still an annoyance. At least I had the foresight to think that this would likely be an issue and put on my waterproof socks. As I've said many times before, they aren't really waterproof, but they still help keep my feet warmer than they otherwise would in the same way a wetsuit would.

The rivers were clearly high as well. Muddy and fast-moving, lapping around trees that were usually above the water level. None of the rivers I saw actually appeared to be flooding houses or other structures, but it would not have surprised me to learn that some structures in the area were suffering from flooding. I don't think I had seen a single muddy river before today--not even on the Pennine Way--but after the rain this morning, they all looked muddy and silty.

Today's section did not include many sections of Hadrian's Wall. It followed the historic route of the wall as best it could, but most of the wall had long since been dismantled and reused in other buildings and projects. There were a few smaller sections to enjoy, but nothing like the miles of walls that the trail followed the last couple of days.

This Roman ruin actually pre-dates Hadrian's Wall by about 30 years. It's the Pike Hill Signal Tower, used to keep watch and send signals. (Plus, note the flooding around it.)

 

What today lacked for in wall, however, was made up for in honesty boxes and sheds. I actually lost count of the number of honesty setups I passed. Maybe five or six of them? Three were full-fledged honesty sheds that felt like little stores. In addition to all these, there were also a couple of cafes and snack bars along the route. I stopped at one for lunch where I ordered a panini, and then I learned that was only the fourth day that particular cafe had been open.

A panini and Coke lunch. Yum! =)

 

One fellow early in the day caught up with me at one of the honesty sheds and late in the day caught up with me again at another one, after we had passed all these food and drink options, and we joked that they really needed to spread them out better. There were a lot of sections I would have killed for a cold drink but there was nothing to be found, and now we were tripping over them every half hour!

I wondered what all the people hiking in the opposite direction thought. If they passed all these today and thought they would have all these options on the rest of the trail, they would be sorely disappointed!

So many honesty boxes and sheds today! Nobody will ever starve to death on this section of trail!

 

I had originally set my sights to camp for the night at a campground just past the town of Carlisle, but when I zoomed into it on Google Maps, I noticed that it was marked as being "temporarily closed." Hmm.... Really? I couldn't imagine why they might have been closed, but it seemed prudent to think of a plan B. I would have preferred to camp right in the town of Carlisle, but there were no campgrounds in the town. Maybe I would have to stealth camp somewhere?

Then I got it in my head to actually do a search for lodging in Carlisle. I knew there was lodging, but everyone had kept talking about it being a bank holiday on Monday so it was a long weekend for everyone. I imagined it was something like a Labor Day in the United States, and figured a lot of people would be traveling and therefore lodging would be particularly expensive--assuming anything was even available at all. which is why I never bothered to check before. But without a campground to stay at, I finally broke down and searched lodging options in Carlisle and was surprised to find a couple of places that not only had availability, but were even reasonably priced! Well, heck, yeah! =) Maybe the biblical floods scared off the tourists?

Artwork in Carlisle

I immediately booked a room at Ibis, and this worked out particularly well for me. Tomorrow would be my last day on the trail, and now my plan was to slackpack to the end of the trail before returning to Carlisle--the major transportation hub in the area--to pick up my full pack and get out of here. Kind of the reverse of what I did at the beginning of the trail in Newcastle. 

There was an additional benefit because at this point, given my late start and the days getting shorter, I had doubts if I would have even made it to the campground I had originally planned by sunset. By stopping a few miles short in Carlisle, I could definitely end the day with plenty of light.

Plus, it allowed me to do a large loop through the town, which I could add to Walking 4 Fun.  Originally, I didn't think I would have time to walk through town in my rush to get to the campground before sunset, but now I had to walk through town just to get to the hotel!

All-in-all, it wound up working out really well to get a hotel in Carlisle, and I was happy about the upgrade. =)

Carlisle Citadel

 

I kept hiking, eventually veering off the official Hadrian's Wall Path route at the edge of Carlisle and through the central part of the city to my hotel and checked in. The couple checking in ahead of me were speaking Polish to each other, so I tried to eavesdrop on them. I got the impression that the wife didn't really know much English since the husband did all the speaking with the clerks, but after they paid for their room and got their key, I wished them a "Good afternoon" in Polish as they were leaving, and they replied with the same but seemingly didn't even notice that I had done it in Polish. I guess my Polish was that good. =)

And thus ended another day on the trail. After checking into the hotel, I was able to take a shower and clean up, and I didn't have any need to leave again until the morning.

There wasn't much of the wall to see today, but there were occasionally small pieces to be spotted, like this one: Turret 51a.

Or this bit on Hare Hill.

This honesty shed, instead of a traditional register, had a notepad and tacks to allow hikers to put notes on the wall.

I particularly liked the drawings of the Roman soldiers. =)

Such a wet trail.... And don't be fooled by that dry-looking area in the middle. It's a bog too! It's just not as deep as the water on each side of it!

The hill in this photo is actually a buried part of the wall. They had excavated and exposed it decades earlier, but then it started to erode very rapidly and they decided the best thing to do was to rebury it again. Which is likely how it'll stay until they can expose it without it decaying so rapidly again.

All the creeks and rivers today seemed unusually high and muddy!

One of many honesty boxes on the trail today! I'm not really sure why this guy even bothered given the much better honesty sheds and snack bars I passed so often today!

A fence made out of used tires... I don't think I've seen that before!

Another "honesty shed"

The River Eden through Carlisle also looked particularly high and muddy!

There seemed to be some sort of street fair going on in Carlisle when I passed through.

Carlisle train station--where I'd have to return to and catch the train out of here just as soon as I finished the trail.

Day 3: How to Become a Roman Soldier

August 22, 2024: I woke up to rain. Wind and rain to be precise, not unlike the conditions I suffered through the last few hours the previous evening. The forecast showed the chance of rain dropping to 30-40% after 10:00am, so I decided to hold off and see how things looked then.

This, I knew, was going to cut into my plans for another 20-mile day, but it was positively miserable to hike through such a strong wind with rain and I really needed to take photos. My camera was still acting up so I decided to start using my backup camera. It wasn't waterproof either, but at least it didn't have a moving lens that could seize up.

Winshields

I lingered around the campground and hostel, which was surprisingly empty of people. The week before, it seemed like there were a few dozen people around. Last night, it seemed like there were three. I ran into the caretaker, Malcolm, who also seemed surprised at the change since the previous week. And it's not like the weather was great then--it rained the entire day I was at Vindolanda. The wind was less of a problem, but still, it was an utterly miserable and wet day.

If the weather didn't improve, though, I could wind up taking a zero day! That was definitely not in the plans, but I had no intention of hiking through such utterly miserable weather again. The only reason I suffered through it yesterday evening was because it wasn't in the forecast at all so I hadn't formed any contingency plans to avoid it.

By 10:00am, the rain finally stopped--for now, at least. And I started packing up getting ready to go. I didn't actually hit the trail until nearly 11:00am, however, and by then, there were even spots of sun starting to break through the clouds.

Side trail back to Hadrian's Wall Path from Winshields

 
Rather than retrace my steps to where I got off  the Hadrian's Wall Path, I took the side trail that led directly uphill to nearly the high point of the entire Hadrian's Wall Path. I would end up missing maybe a half-mile of official trail, but it was a section I had already hiked the week before while on the Pennine Way so I didn't care that much. I was already far behind my self-imposed schedule and took the shortest route back to the trail!

I did backtrack a minute or two just to hit the high spot and take photos of it for Walking 4 Fun, then immediately turned right around and started hiking in the correct direction.

The official high point of the Hadrian's Wall Path was marked by this trigpoint marker.

The trail was much like I remembered it from the week before, and covered some of the most rugged sections of the entire Hadrian's Wall Path. Of course, I thought, if there was a section that the Pennine Way would overlap, it would be the hardest section of the trail and force me to hike it twice! I kind of felt like the Pennine Way was a mini-version of the Appalachian Trail, deliberately hitting every high point it could find and trying to make sure the trail was as difficult as possible every step of the way.

At the Walltown Country Park, I stopped for a break at the same visitor center that I  had stopped at before and where I had picked up the Hadrian's Wall Path passport. When I bought it, the clerk had mentioned that they actually had all of the stamps there to stamp it--and it wasn't even one of the official places to get the stamp. But remembering this, I asked if I could stamp the Housesteads one which I skipped yesterday due to the bad weather. So they pulled it out and I got the missing stamp. =)

I also got some ice cream and a Coke to turn into a Coke float. They had sandwiches as well, but only one called an egg and cress sandwich, and I sheepishly asked what a cress was. I really had no idea. Was it a type of meat? A fish? A bird? Turns out, it was more of a plant from the cabbage family. In any case, I bought it and wolfed it down.

I started eating my egg and cress sandwich and was ready to create a Coke float out of the Coke and ice cream. =)

 

At the table next to me were a couple of other Hadrian Wall Path walkers, and one of them said they had seen me earlier. Oh? Really? "Where was that?" I asked. I was a little surprised--almost nobody was hiking in my direction, so if they had seen me before, I would have thought I would have remembered them. 

They said that they were at the Twice Brewed Inn and saw when I had walked in and the waitress asked if I was okay. Ahh, well, okay. "You did look pretty beat up," they told me.

Yeah.... It also made sense why I didn't remember them. They probably blended in with all other visitors there at the time. It was really quite busy! But I could imagine that I had made quite the impression on everyone when I walked in drenched to the bone after having walked 25 miles to get there!

I was also definitely much improved from my memorable entrance. A lot drier and happier now.

They also  shared a story from the beginning of their hike. They had a room in central Newcastle, and the day they started the hike, took the subway to Wallsend then realized that the trail went right by the hotel they stayed at before they realized that they had not needed to carry their full pack that entire distance.

I couldn't help but laugh, telling them I had realized that before setting out on the hike and slackpacked it myself, but hey, they were new to long-distance hiking and hadn't thought of little tricks like that before. That's normal! Live and learn! =)

Just around the corner from the visitor center was the Roman Army Museum, which I had missed while hiking the Pennine Way but I figured I'd hit it up this time. I had even purchased a discounted ticket ahead of time while at Vindolanda--there was a discount if you purchased both tickets at the same time. And knowing I'd be coming back this way, I splurged for it.

So now I felt like I was committed--I had to go to the Roman Army Museum! I had already purchased the ticket!

I asked the clerk at the visitor center if I could leave my pack there while I explored the museum, and he pointed me to a closet door and said to go ahead and leave my pack there. I did so, then hoofed it the five or so minutes to the Roman Army Museum.

It turned out the site was actually just the museum and not so much Roman ruins. There are Roman ruins there--I could even see a group of people in the distance who appeared to be excavating a section of it off in the distance, but none of the ruins appeared to be open to the public at large as far as I could tell. I looked through the exhibits, which were interesting and explored the military side of the Roman empire. I was especially excited about the film we could watch since that meant I could sit down and rest while learning all about it. =)

A life-sized statue of a Roman soldier at the Roman Army Museum

 

The light inside wasn't great for photos, however, so I didn't bother taking many. When I finished, I headed back to the Walltown park visitor center to pick up my pack. Before pushing onward, I checked the most recent weather forecast, and it looked promising for the next several hours. Perhaps rain during the night, but nothing to worry about until then.

I soon reached the point where the Pennine Way veered off to the south, and I suddenly felt like I was back in unexplored territory. Of course, this territory had been explored--there was even a guidebook I was following that described it in considerable detail--but it was all new for me.

At this point, I felt like I was becoming somewhat of an expert on Hadrian's Wall. A new section would pop up, and I'd examine it without even reading anything about it in my guidebook. This looks like a thin section of the wall, I'd tell myself. Expertly constructed. But a portion of this was reconstructed--the Romans would have used mortar if it was original.

The trail soared over the River Irthing on a modern bridge called the Willowford footbridge. A nearby sign explained that it was the first footbridge constructed over the river since Roman times. It was not a stretch to guess that the new bridge was not an original Roman construction. Definitely too much steel and not enough stonework!

This bridge over the River Irthing I could recognize immediately as not being from the Roman era. *nodding* =)

Later in the afternoon, really the early evening, I saw what appeared to be rain far out on the horizon. That can't be right, I thought. I explicitly checked the weather forecast just two hours earlier and it gave me the all clear! I pulled out my phone and checked the forecast again which had updated to show a 50% chance of rain in less than an hour. I cussed. I was angry! They couldn't even get a semi-accurate forecast even two hours in advance? Ugh.

My original goal had been to reach a campground at Banks, but looking at my guidebook, I saw another campsite perhaps less than 30 minutes away called Coombe Crag Camping and decided to shoot for that instead. Hopefully I could get there and get a tent set up before any rain started.

I quickened my pace, eager to avoid the rain. There was a sign by a house to knock on the door of a nearby house to register to camp, so I did that. There was a large knocker on the door, which I pounded loudly when I used it, but when nobody answered, I called the number written on the door and a kind, gentle-looking older woman came out around the house to talk to me.

And told me that the campground was temporary closed. What?! No!!!!! 

She explained that she had hosted a group of inner city kids a few days earlier and that they had completely trashed the place, broke the porta-potty, and ruined the honesty shed. The honesty shed, she told me, she only got back up in working order that afternoon, but there was still a huge amount of trash littering the campground and the toilet was still broken, but a guy was coming tomorrow to fix it.

I was heartbroken. She seemed to feel really bad about the unexpected closure and swore that she would never host a group of inner city, at-risk kids again. Not worth the trouble. She offered to give me a ride to the next campground--the one I had originally planned to hit--but I explained that I really wanted to keep my steps connected and would just walk. My stop had been unplanned, but I had seen the rain in the distance and and hoped to set up camp before walking into it. It wouldn't kill me to keep walking, but it would definitely be an annoyance.

The woman seemed to feel pity for me because she then offered to allow me to set up camp in her yard instead of the farm field where people usually camped, and that I could use the toilet in the house. I said I didn't even need the toilet--I had used the facilities earlier in the day and didn't really need a bathroom for a number one--plenty of trees around for that!--and I was eternally grateful for the opportunity to camp in her yard.

While we were chatting, a few drops of rain fell, warning about the impending storm, and she showed me where I could set up. I quickly rushed to get my tent up before the rain really started. She also offered a reduced camping price of five pounds since the full set of facilities wasn't available. I would have been happy to pay full price, but I didn't argue about the discount either. =)

After getting my tent up, I wandered over to the honesty shed and took a closer look at it, and it was absolutely amazing. Looking through the options, I noticed that they even had noodles which I could heat with hot water from the kettle, and decided to have a hot meal for dinner rather than something out of my pack. I also grabbed a cold Coke from the mini-fridge and a flapjack. The flapjack I grabbed mostly because I had heard of them earlier on the trail but didn't really know what they were. So I wanted to try one. (They are a sweet dense cake made from oats, golden syrup, and melted butter and served in rectangles.) Basically, a dessert.

The honesty shed was really an entire kitchen that hikers could make use of! =)

 

I paid for the food items in the designated spot and sat down in a chair provided in the shed to eat dinner and watch the rain pick up.

After finishing, I ran back to the tent and jumped inside before the rain got me too wet. Thus marked the end of another day.

However, after my very late departure from Winshields and my early stop here, I had only completed about 13 miles in total for the day--far short of my 20-mile per day goal and I realized that it was very unlikely I'd be able to finish the trail in just four days at this point. But, I figured, I could still finish in five days.

That, however, could wait for another day! For the time being, I was glad to have basically missed the rain today, both in the morning and in the evening. Definitely a much better outcome than yesterday's disastrous end! =)

 

 

Turret 41a

Old quarry, used since Roman days

 

I was getting better at recognizing Hadrian's Wall, even when the remains were largely covered in dirt.

Exhibit at the Roman Army Museum

It was rather dark and creepy in this little grove of trees!