Hadrians Wall Path – Day 1

• Start: Bowness on Solway
• End: Carlisle
• Distance: 26.51 km
• Time: 8:04:01

So three years after our Ridgeway adventure, our collective pain amnesia kicked in and we thought “why don’t we do another 8 day long distance walk” 😂 Fortunately, some vestiges of memory remained and so we settled for the ‘only’ 84 miles of the Hadrians Wall Path from ‘Wallsend’ to the actual Wallsend NE28.

Our walk begins on the Saturday after the hottest day of the year – so far- and the day after an IT outage of global proportions which meant that we both arrived in Carlisle, our first accommodation, well after 10pm, me having driven the length of the country with all the gear and Craig attempting the train from Euston…..

However, we got here and are staying for two nights in the handily placed 35 Warwick Street in the centre of Carlisle, which we quickly covered in walking gear.

Today, after a bacon roll at Costa next to Carlisle train station, we travelled by Taxi to Bowness on Solway where the wall ended to start our trek along it. Today there wasn’t a lot of actual wall to be seen, the locals having spent the last 2000 years pilfering it to add into their houses, walls and churches.

However, just outside of the village of Beaumont, meaning ‘lovely hill’ we did find a section where the earth bank that the wall sat upon still exists. This was dramatic enough, and with a ten foot stone wall atop would be enough to frighten a whole army of Picts!!

There was a huge variation in scenery today, starting this morning with the salt marshes of the Solway firth with its lonely sea birds and the memory of industrial architecture at the port of Carlisle long since abandoned.

There was an amazingly sweet little Methodist chapel which was set up like a ‘help yourself’ cafe, with an honesty box for walkers.

We had lunch, panini and chips, at the Greyhound in Burgh-by-sands,

and then spent some time in the tiny church of St Michaels which had cannibalised the wall to provide a fortified tower to repel the Scots Reivers (raiders) who plagued the area after the death of Edward I. This warrior King, ‘the hammer of the Scots’, died on the Solway marshes on the 7th of July 1307 and his body lay in state in this tiny church before beginning the long journey back to Westminster Abbey.

In the afternoon the scenery changed to become less desolate and maritime and more wooded and domestic.

However, we had less time to take pictures this afternoon, as we had forgotten how long it takes to do these things and so needed to get a march on to reach Carlisle before Marks and Spencer closed, so we could buy lunch for tomorrow!!

This evening we had dinner in the amazing David’s Restaurant. Just over the road from our accommodation, it claimed to be the best fine dining restaurant in Carlisle, and it certainly delivered!

I had the Scallops starter followed by the Chicken Schnitzel,

and Craig had fig leaves stuffed with brie followed by sous-vide lamb.

Highly recommended!

Tomorrow we have a similar length walk from Carlisle to Lanercost. But we will be saying a sad farewell to the car, which we are leaving at Carlisle train station for the week, so tomorrow it will be time for the ‘big bags’. 😱