We had no wi-fi for the past few days so its been hard to give updates.
We didn't walk along Hadrian's Wall yesterday, instead we walked away from the wall and went to Vindalanda, which is an active Roman excavation and museum that is a few miles off the path of Hadrian's Wall. So we still got in plenty of walking because we had to get there. We spent way too much time there, walked to the Northumberland tourist office and picked up a bus to the Roman Military Museum, 4 miles away ... spent too much time there and had to get a car to take us to our B&B in the next town. So instead of walking 8 or 10 miles along the wall, we walked about 7 miles to/from the museum, etc.
Today we walked 10.99 (according to my FitBit), did a good bit of that along Hadrian's Wall, then we turned south and went about a mile and a half to Lanercost Priory. Its made out of stones from the wall. It was sacked by Scotland's Robert the Bruce, and then later it mostly destroyed by Henry VIII because it was a Catholic priory, the monks were scattered, killed or converted. Later part of it was rebuilt and its now an Anglican church, a B&B and a fancy Tea Room. So its become a tourist stopping point, a dining place for locals, etc.
We continued our detour and took backroads and local woodland trails to get to our hotel tonight in Brampton. We could have walked back to Hadrian's Wall but we were told about a wooded walk, which turned out to follow a little stream and was really a beautiful walk of probably a mile or more and made for a great diversion. According to the hotel info Charles Dickens spent the night here. Melen is staying in the SCROOGE room and the lovely Mrs Bob & I have the MARLEY room. Brampton, at least the center of town, is like a picture postcard with lots of old buildings and little shops, inns and restaurants. We opted for Chinese food.
Some of the areas we have been walking are very remote, others along highways, and sometimes through towns. Some of the distances between towns have been pretty long, one of the days we ran 2 of our 3 2-liter Camelbak water bladders dry. While England has virtually no 'wilderness' there are, for people traveling on foot, long empty stretches where water is inaccessable. I've also noticed that heavy boots are common among the British hikers, the leather alpine style that were popular in the 1970's and honestly for good reason. While the Hadrian's Wall trail is popular, it has some rugged portions, lots of walking over rocky terrain, and plenty of deep mud, especially after rains. We had horrific winds and rains a few days ago, every other day has been pretty nice, typically cool temps about 50. Mostly cloudy, scattered sunshine. We are all sun and windburned on our faces but wee've pretty much been wearing long sleeves, fleeces, etc so just our faces have seen any sun. Hadrian's Wall follows some spectacular cliffs, which they call CRAGS here, the wall is often right along the edges, with hundreds of feet of dropoffs ... and no guard rails. Apparently they understand its dangerous and simply don't walk to the edge.
We walk into Carlisle tomorrow, then onto Bowness On Solway the next, where the wall terminates. Actually we probably won't see much, if any, of the wall for the remaining path we follow. There is a castle, a farmer's market and lots to see in Carlisle.
We've honestly been walking so much that we have not had time to see a lot, other than fields of sheep and cattle. Some of the views from the tops of the cliffs have been absolutely amazing. We've met people from all over that we have seen over the past couple of days and run into them several times, and lots of dogs too. Apparently Brits love to hike with their dogs!
