Hadrian's Wall walk This event raised over £3000 and we aim to repeat this!

Well we did it. 84 miles and 4,700 feet of ascent in 6 days, and mostly in shorts! Weather very good for those parts with good visibility. Showers threatened on Wednesday and arrived on Thursday, but a convenient bird-hide kept us largely dry.
Splendid views and a good range of wild flowers throughout with swallows accompanying us much of the way. At Birdoswald they were calling from a low roof clearly showing their chestnut-red chins. We also saw young of lapwing and oystercatcher . Botchergate in Carlisle is lively on a Saturday night with the road gated off for cheerful ‘ clubbers’ until 5.00 a.m. – I slept through it all. The map for Day 1 showed a Vending Machine, which we used, and later we had a statue of Edward 1 watching over our al fresco lunch. He cropped up two days later at Lanercost Priory from where he governed England during his campaign – and impoverished the monks by keeping his court there. Haltwhistle still regards itself as the Centre of Britain – half way from Muckle Flugga to Lands End – and we played Pool at the Comrades Club.

Unaccountably it is not easy to buy sun lotion there.
Days 3 and 4 were the more rugged parts with successive crags and long sections of wall with milecastles and forts including Chesters, Housesteads and Vindolanda. Sycamore Gap is rather scenic and made its way into “Robin Hood Prince of Thieves”, somewhat bizarrely. The disappointment of Day 3 was finding after several dry miles, the ‘Centurion’ at Walton closed, in spite of the sign swinging outside. On Day 5 we crossed the North Tyne at Chollerford on our way to Heddon-on-the-Wall. Enough cygnets on the Whittle Dene Reservoir to form a ring[!!], but a bird-hide too for observation and shelter.
Day 6 took us down to the Tyne [already tidal] opposite Clara Vale and by surprisingly green tracks to the seven bridges at the Centre. The Sage and the Baltic reachable by the ‘Winking Bridge’ which we crossed and re-crossed, before seeing the Tall Ship ‘Stavros Niarchos’ coming in to a throng of waiting parents.
On the last leg [or legs perhaps] we followed the north bank of the Tyne, then a disused railway track past as colourful and mixed array of wild flowers as I have seen in some time. The last district we pass is aptly named Walker before finishing at the Hadrian Lodge, next to Segedunum and its museum.

Many thanks to the 47 people who have ready supported me, and just in casale you haven’t and might be thinking about it…………

With best wishes

Geoff