In keeping with our resolution to summarize our 2018 Off-Boat Life and "move on" we sketched out a post that covered all of mid-June through October, 2018. It gave us brain freeze. We couldn't edit all of the places, information, thoughts and pictures into one coherent post.
Here, then is our FIRST post covering our 2018 off-Abracadabra season – this one about our walk along (much of) England’s Hadrian’s Wall Path (September 10 – 23, 2018).
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| Molly Vs. Wall |
Some Background: The Wall
Hadrian’s Wall was a grand military infrastructure project initiated by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in AD122 (remember this year – it will become important if you want to catch a bus along the Wall Path!). When completed, it stretched 80 miles (128 kilometers) coast-to-coast and established the border between Britannia (Roman Britain) and Barbarian (the Roman term, not ours!) Scotland. It included frontier post gates every Roman mile (1,000 marching paces) - now referred to as milecastles - and observation towers every 1/3 Roman mile between milecastles. The majority of the Wall is believed to have been 15 feet high. That’s a lot of engineering, stone cutting, stone and rubble hauling and building.  |
| An Engineering Marvel |
To support the Wall and its milecastle gateways, the Romans also built a fort approximately every five miles along the Wall. A village grew up around each fort to house the butchers, bakers and uniform makers as well as the families of the soldiers and cavalrymen.
Perhaps more fascinating, a ditch was dug along the south side of the Wall - referred to as the Vallum. Not a barrier to keep Barbarian's (from the north) out, but to keep Britains from approaching the Wall.
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| And We Don't Mean A Small Ditch. |
It’s said that the Wall’s purpose was to keep out the barbarians of Scotland but the more we read about the Wall and saw the remains of the forts and milecastles, which allowed passage across the border, we began to think an equally important purpose of all that stone was to regulate trade between the Barbarians and Rome. Modern historians believe the major geopolitical aspect of the Wall was its representation of Hadrian’s decision to halt the expansion of the Roman Empire. He was the first Roman Emperor to say something like “Yeah, well – I think that’s probably enough, guys . . . “.
More Background: The Wall Path
The Wall Path is one of the many walking paths of Britain’s National Trail system. It is not synonymous with the line of the Wall, but follows it to a large extent. The Wall Path was opened in 2003 and stretches 84 (modern) miles (134 kilometers) from Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend. |
| The National Trails Symbol To Us It Meant: You Are Not Lost |
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| Don't Walk On The Wall! It's A UNESCO Heritage Site! Well, Unless You Are A Sheep. |
Our Wall Path Walk
We booked a “self-guided walking holiday” through Contours Walking Holidays. We walked on our own, without a guide, following information provided by Contours. We carried water, camera, raingear, hiking notes, snacks (of course) and cell phones. Our luggage was magically transferred from pleasant lodging to pleasant lodging by the company. |
| One Of The Charming Lodgings Arranged For Us |
Our Confession: We did not walk the entire Wall Path. We booked a route of 64 miles with the intention of ending at Heddon-On-The-Wall and avoiding the urban walk through Newcastle. Our best estimate is that we eventually walked about 50 of those anticipated miles. True hikers will surely scoff at 50 miles over 12 walking days -- but in our defense: we mostly enjoyed ourselves (a few rainy moments excepted); didn’t incur any major injuries; avoided irreparable partnership disagreements; and only gained about five pounds each (English breakfasts and beer, you know).
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| Northern England - Almost As Many Sheep As Scotland |
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| HonoringThose Who Drank Before Us |
Molly's Confession: We walked west to east because Bryce had read this would put the prevailing winds to our backs. Molly agreed grumpily, reluctantly setting aside a romantic notion of ending the walk on the Western coast at sunset (hand-in-hand, gazing out to sea, blah blah blah). After (a) experiencing a couple of seriously blustery days (one with reported gusts of over 70 mph which we sat out at a lovely B&B) and (b) meeting a fellow walker who had taken a tumble in high winds and landed on her face (it looked gruesome), Molly acknowledged that Bryce’s call had been a good one. He was gentlemanly enough not to require her to put that in writing, but here it is.
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| Where We Started |
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| Where We Ended |
A Thank You Wendy! Our friend Wendy Feltham became our English Walking Guru. When we visited her (and her husband Larry Fisher) in Port Townsend, Washington before our walk she enthusiastically shared her recent experience walking the British National Trail System's Coast-to-Coast Path. The Coast-to-Coast is a REAL through hike - 192 miles (309 kilometers) - which Wendy and a friend completed in 14 days. We had no intention of walking that far that fast, but we benefited immensely from her advice about day pack rain covers, rain pants and jackets, boots and walking poles. Thank you, Wendy. FYI, we are still using our day-pack rain covers and rain pants in Panama!
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| Others Have Gone Before |
Our walk starting with the marshlands in the west.
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| Intimidating, Eh? |
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| West Coast Marsh |
We occasionally walked along highways.
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| Yes, Yes, I'm Coming! |
But primarily were routed through fields . . .
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| A Style of Stile -- Watch For Cow Patties |
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| And Sheep Pooh. |
and charming villages.
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| The Village of "Kirkandrews" - Andrews' Church! |
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| We Stopped Into A Church (Really, Several) We Passed Along The Way . . . |
Though there were some moments of significant elevation.
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| Yes, We've Shown This Shot Already But - It Best Makes Our Point |
An Empowering Lesson: We had built several extra days into our itinerary thinking we would "walk, walk, walk - sightsee for a day - repeat". But we ended up using several of our rest days differently. It dawned on us at one point (ah hah!) that we didn’t have to walk each leg in the time established by our itinerary. If our feet (or knees or hips) hurt too much, we got too wet (Northern England, you know) or had a banging head cold (Molly, days three and four) we could walk until we began to get grumpy and then divert from the trail, head for the nearest bus stop or other identifiable location and either wait for the AD122 or use our cell phone to call a taxi! We turned more than one 12-mile day into two 6-mile days by having a taxi pick us up and then, on the following day, return us to the previous day’s early termination point.
Self-Guided.
Walking.
Holiday.
On Hadrian’s Wall Path extra days are also important if walkers want a history tour as well as a physical challenge. There are lots of places to walk and see pretty country and celebrate the creation of blisters. Hadrian’s Wall Path is that – but it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site strung with museums.
At Vindolanda we saw archaeologists at work. We watched as someone presented the head archaeologist part of a Roman leather sandal. ("Yes, put it in the leather bucket.") We took pictures of volunteers dusting off an uncovered Roman wooden viaduct.
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| Vindolanda Dig |
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| Roman Walkway |
At the Roman Army Museum we learned about the organization of the Roman Army and how it dangled the prize of citizenship to non-citizen recruits who often served, retired, and/or died thousands of miles from their homeland.
At Chesters Roman Fort and Museum we saw a collection of Roman bits put together by one of those wonderfully excentric amateur archaeologists the British seemed to have so many of.
And more.
There were several opportunities to mull over the vast civil service necessary to create and sustain the Wall and attendant forts, milecastles and turrets. Our favorite "retired civil servant moment" took place when we saw the Wall change from three meters thick to two meters thick. We couldn't help but imagine some unknown Roman accountant saying "Geez guys - we would save a lot of money if we made the wall just a meter thinner. Can someone talk to General X and see if that would fly . . . ".
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| Planetrees, Where Archaeologists Have Found A Three Meter Base And A Two Meter Wall |
The Romans' Wall is fascinating, but the borderlands were home to other border-like activities. From the late 13th Century to the beginning of the 17th Century the area was terrorized by (somtimes romanticized) gangs called the Border Reivers. Scotish gangs would steal stuff from England and the English gangs would steal stuff from Scotland - a veritable chicken and egg raiding culture took hold for hundreds of years. The remains of the fortified farmhouses (called Castles) can still be seen.
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| Drumburgh Castle. Today's Stone Stairway Was Once A Ladder That Could Be Drawn Inside. People Upstairs, Livestock Down |
An Enthusiastic Recommendation
For those interested in a long walk with interesting things to see and think about along the way, we can’t recommend The Hadrian's Wall Path enough. For non-walkers interested in Roman history, try a self-guided driving holiday (albeit on the “wrong” side of the road) or use the local taxi services or the AD122 bus. The borderlands are beautiful and the history (Roman and otherwise) is fascinating. The food’s fine and the beer’s good. What’s not to like?You may even be able to get a sense of your own little place in history if you've worked for a government agency.
