We were going to walk part of Hadrian’s Wall. We had to call Robin and wake him up after a late night celebrating in order to meet at Waverley by 8 a.m. We bought open tickets to Hexham which is a town near the wall. Robin was none too chipper on the way out.
Robin missed seeing the cows, goats and sheep as we travelled to Newcastle Upon Tyne. We had 30 minutes before the train for Hexham so left the station to walk around Newcastle.
the Black Gate
The train to Hexham was tiny and seemed to stop every 10 minutes.
When we got to Hexham, we found the bus to the wall didn’t leave for another 45 minutes. We decided to take a taxi. As we were driving to the wall, the driver recommended we go to Vindolanda, a Roman settlement where excavation was still on going. From there we could walk back towards Hexham. It was a great recommendation as the site had the finds on display and areas with explanations showed the settlement buildings they were excavating. Hadrian himself had once been there.
Amazing number of things have been excavated from clothing, to shopping lists, weapons and dishes.
We spent over an hour before walking uphill to get to Hadrian’s Wall.
Robin on the Wall
We did a lot of climbing and descending seeing the wall at various states of near burial, some excavated points where look out towers had been erected and the wall where there were mile markers.
At some points we walked on top of the wall.
Housesteads, where a garrison was housed and where an information centre, a small coffee and gift shop are now set up. Despite being cool and cloudy, we needed water after two hours of walking.
turret
Around 2 p.m. it started to rain. We continued on but the rain grew increasingly heavy. My pants, then legs started to get soaked and water ran down into my goretex lined boots so that each stepped squished with the water inside. Earlier, I had managed to lose one of my contact lenses, so was wearing my glasses. Having rain drops obscure my vision didn’t help the walking.
We decided to call it quits and used our new mobile to call Jesse, the taxi driver, to pick us up at the Repeater Station rather than walk further towards Hexham.
It had quit raining by the time Jesse picked us up but we were only too glad to have a ride back to Hexham train station.
It was almost 6:30 by the time we were back to Waverley. After a shower and dry clothes, we joined Robin for some wine and cheese, then to the Guilford Arms for supper. We were seated on the balcony.
smoked salmon salad
warm tomato and basil soup
LHWatson's Travel Blog 