Hadrians Wall Path – Day 3

• Start: Lanercost
• End: Greenhead
• Distance: 15.41 Km (2 Km wandering around Birdoswald Fort)
• Time: 06:50:15

This morning we woke to find that we were faced with a normal Cumbria Summer’s Day – it was raining🌧️🌧️. However, fortified by an amazing breakfast courtesy of Deborah, we donned the waterproofs (there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear!) and cheerfully strode out for a 1.5km uphill trudge to rejoin the Hadrian’s Wall Path.

Once we resumed the path at Banks we very quickly started to run into large amounts of extant wall,

with milecastles every Roman mile (1000 double strides) and turrets at every 1/3 of a Roman mile (333 double strides).

We engaged in our own experiment between turrets 51a and 51b and discovered that we had slightly longer strides than the average Legionnaire, as we completed it in only 310 double strides!!

By lunchtime we had reached Birdoswald Fort, the largest Roman fortified site in Cumbria and after a quick sandwich in the English Heritage Cafe, set off to explore.

The site is really quite large, despite very little of it being excavated and it really gives a sense of how busy and alive what is now rather desolate moor land would have been 2000 years ago. Craig also had great fun in the Museum creating a little ‘meeple’ with his face to join a Roman military scene 😘

When we moved on, the fact that it had rained constantly since the previous evening, meant that a few creative solutions were required to avoid wading in mud, Craig took any number of photos here, no doubt hoping to capture a comedy log falling moment which didn’t occur😂

As we continued, there were many more turrets and milecastles to encounter with the associated information boards.

These are vastly improving our understanding of Roman life, architecture, and military matters. However, neither of us will ever know what this board said as we were not prepared to challenge the horse resolutely sitting on it!

It wasn’t all Roman wall today though, there were some stunning views of the landscape from the top of the hills.

This rather impressive gorge marked the border between Cumbria and Northumberland

and this lovely idyllic stream was not far from The Gap which marks the moment when all water courses will start flowing into the Tyne and the North Sea rather than the Eden and the Irish.

We finished the day at the Greenhead hotel, near Thirlwall Castle,

no bath this evening, but pre-dinner drinks included a flight of ale, local ruby, stout and pale ales, very tasty 🍺🍺🍺

It is possible that the sun might make a brief appearance tomorrow,

but even if it doesn’t we are bound to experience some more stunning scenery 😀