Another Long Walk: 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! =)