England - Part 1: Hadrian's Wall

Greetings and welcome back!

As mentioned at the end of my last blog, I spent the month of October in England.

The first two weeks were set around Hadrian’s Wall. The second two weeks I spent hiking in the Lake District, York, and Isle of Wight (which will be in “Part 2”).

About 10 years ago one of my friends made the suggestion to hike Hadrian’s Wall, the Roman wall built across England, from coast to coast, almost 2000 years ago. If you’re not familiar, here’s an article on it: Hadrian's Wall

Since we’re all history buffs we thought it was a great idea, and at the time, the target date of “when we turned 60” seemed far off and manageable. Fast forward 10 years and through Covid-19, and we finally were in motion… a year late, but better late than never! We chose to do the hike at a leisurely pace, over 10 days, since this allowed us to fully immerse in the rich north England heritage, and visit the many plaques, ruins, museums, and other points of interest along the way. The hike can certainly be done faster if you just stay on the path, but in retrospect, given how much there was to see, I’m extremely grateful we took our time.

Photographically I took minimal gear: only my 12-40 (24-80 FF equivalent) zoom lens. In retrospect I could have taken more gear, but this kit did a pretty good job of giving me the tools I needed. Of course, I took hundreds of photos, but I’ve tried to distill it down to something manageable, with only a few of my favourite images, and a few extras to give context, or, hopefully, a bit of comedy.

We hiked west to east, starting in Carlisle and ending in Newcastle. This was the a recommended direction for October, since the prevailing winds and rain (…the inevitable English rain!…) would be behind us, rather than spraying our faces. It turned out to be a wise decision, especially during the first few days.

Our first selfie, in front of Carlisle cathedral, from left to right: David, Blair, and myself. On our WhatsApp group chat, we called ourselves “Hadrian’s Crawlers”…

The first part of the hike is mixed rural and small towns. The actual wall didn’t make an appearance until day 3, but we followed the rough path of where it used to run. The striking thing for us was how everything we saw was already old, and built to last:

Even the mailbox embedded in the brick is old…

It drizzled and rained constantly the first few days, but we’d expected it and were dressed accordingly. The trail switches between pavement and walking in sodden fields next to stone walls, with just about every view being some variation of the above. And did I mention everything is old?

One thing we discovered right away was something nobody mentioned in all the guide books or youtube videos we watched: when crossing the fields, the sheer number of cows and sheep, and their endless effluent, was … shall we say … impressive! At times navigating was a choice between cow pie, a sheep pile, or a “muddy” pool…probably filled with cow pie from the top of the hill.

And with that many sheep, I was put in mind of the Pink Floyd song from the Animals album…if you know the lyrics, it doesn’t end well for the humans. They seem so passive, but surely they’re up to something?

By the fourth day we hit the actual ruins, which was pretty exciting. I would have to say day 4 through 7 were the highlight for us, as the weather lightened up, the terrain become rugged, and we saw some truly impressive ruins. Well into day 4, looking back west from where we came:

Some ferns growing in the wall:

Looking back, there is something compelling, and much more satisfying, about seeing a country this way. Walking all day, seeing the scars on the terrain from centuries past, having it grow on you slowly with each day anticipating a bit more, it was kind of emotional. You really get a shadow of a sense of the effort required to build such a project. They built it about a mile a month, and I can’t imagine the sheer number of wagons of mortar and stones, never mind tents, food, water, shovels, smiths, animals and their fodder, and all the rest of the logistics required to make it happen.

David put it best: “The Romans were basically engineers with swords.”

By day 5 the terrain started to get rugged, and everything got that much more impressive. It just didn’t stop. They built up hill. They built down hill. They built along cliff tops…cliffs that nobody in their right mind would climb, so what would be the point? That’s when it starts to look like sheer f****** hubris.

“Why did you build this?”
“Because we can.”

Keep in mind, the actual wall at its peak was 3-4 metres high, and it wasn’t just a wall: every Roman mile was a fort holding 30-40 soldiers, with a smaller fort every 1/3rd mile holding 8-10 soldiers. The above is a mile-fort, if you squint you can see my friends in the doorway.

In the middle of this section was the famous 300 year old Sycamore tree that has been featured in a few movies. Tragically somebody decided about a week before we arrived to take a chain saw to it and cut it down. The senselessness of this act had the locals outraged and it was a constant topic of conversation. We stayed in the “Twice-Brewed Inn” in the town of Once-Brewed…(I am not making that up)… and many of the locals we spoke to expressed the desire to enact “rough justice”. I can’t say I blame them.

In contrast, nearby was one of the highlights in this section: the Vindolanda ruins. This is an archeological treasure trove, an excavated Roman town that contained some unprecedented discoveries. There were many impressive findings, but probably the most impressive to me were two things: the sheer number of preserved clothing, especially shoes, showing intricate and precise leather work; and the “tablets” or letters that were preserved, showing basic communication between individuals not just about military or bureaucratic matters, but also personal notes, including a plea by one soldier for his mother to send more underwear, because it was “cold in the north”.

What makes it unique is that usually this kind of information is lost because the items are perishable and rot or crumble to dust. But Vindolanda was fortunate to have many items fall into anaerobic conditions, allowing the items to be preserved.

I couldn’t possibly do it justice, but it was worth the trip all on its own. Here are a couple links for the curious: Vindolanda ; Vindolanda Tablets

We spent half a day there, and still had a full day of hiking ahead of us: this is early afternoon, after spending the morning far off to the left, and restarting the Wall hike beyond the distant peak:

By this point we were somewhat toughened, and sights like this, with the Wall always disappearing over some hill, or into the distance, didn’t phase us too much:

The light was ever changing, especially late in the day when the shadows started to get long:

After hiking for hours we spent the night at the Old Repeater Station, a B&B run by “Les”, an 80 year old man with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, and a mouth full of caustic wit. He greeted us at the door with a tumbler half full of scotch, told us the scotch was free but the beer was extra, and regaled us with stories of his life, and why he ended up with a red 1961 Ferrari in his driveway. Now…I can’t say too much about his hygiene, but the food was delicious, and I’m sure he washed his hands…

All in all it was a great way to wind up a very long day.

After that, though we enjoyed the challenge of the hiking, the terrain flattened out and the ruins became less impressive. We arrived at the River Tyne:

There are more Roman ruins here, but the light was having more fun with the trees in the nearby fields:

The River Tyne runs through Newcastle (which is technically called Newcastle-on-Tyne), though it would take us a couple more days to reach the end.

The last of the physical wall, near Newcastle:

The ivy on the last B&B was impressive:

The remainder was a lot of urban and pavement walking, with a lot of “river walk” paths, which, while very pretty, was kind of anti-climatic for us. This is the last day, a couple hours from the end, we’ve just walked past the centre of Newcastle in the distance:

And finally, Segedunum, the official end of the hike:

It was a fantastic experience, with great travel companions, I’d do it again, or something like it, in a heartbeat. I’m grateful too that pretty much everything went smoothly, from the planes, to the trains, to the bookings etc. Couldn’t have asked for better!

We spent a few days in London after that, but I don’t have a lot of pictures. I will however end this with a shout out to Poppies Thai restaurant in Hammersmith, probably the quirkiest restaurant of any kind I’ve ever been too, and food so good we returned three nights in a row. Check out the decor, and how they serve their spring rolls: