Carole and Jenny

Before we start, we have uploaded the photos for yesterday, so please take a look.

Last night we stayed in our fav. B & B so far.  It’s motto is ” A little bit of luxury on the wall” and it was. Carole can’t remember how long she was soaking in the bath but Jenny disappeared to watch a film!!! It was called Vallum Lodge , the only negative was no wifi!

We started before 9am this morning and so panicked an alpha male guest that he rushed out to put his boots on when we were leaving.  The walk started with a steep climb up to the wall’s highest point.  The scenery was spectacular here at Windshield Crags.

The path at this point went up and down steeply and we are not mountain goats and some teenagers even laughed at us as we tentatively climbed down. We must say at this point, that it was very blustery and raining.  We had to save the nails (Jenny) and the hair!!!!

This part of the walk has been most dramatic, up on the crags.  We came down off this section into the now disused Cawfields Quarry.  Here was the best public loo we have visited so far.  Jenny was so excited she ran to it in joy!!

The next section of walk, some of the path was under repair so we were detoured and some parts were very steep.  We eventually came to a cafe near Walltown.  Here we bought postcards for the families and had a hot coffee and a snack.  It was here that we were buzzed by the RAF.

Some of you might have been a little concerned re our map reading skills.  However we would like to assure you that it is pretty hard to get lost.  You just follow the acorn.  As mothers’ of boys with autism, pictorial references are like a second language to us and we thrive on the visual stimuli.

We knew that this was going to be our longest day and so our mission was to plod on.  We did so in sun, rain and gales and did not stop until we reached Birdoswald.  Another Roman fort and museum.  We only stayed for a cup of tea as we knew that we had another 2 1/2  hours of walking from here and we had already walked 5 hours by then.

As previously stated Carole is a bit of a Mrs Doolittle.  She has to “talk” to every dog and dog owner and has now “adopted” this sheep.  John you will be glad to know the farmer refused to sell!!

Even with the weather we were able to enjoy some spectacular scenery.

We continued down into Banks avoiding the field with the angry bull.  This was where Stage 4 of our walk should have finished for the day, but our hotel was located in another village on from this.  Another 2-3 miles away.  Jenny, not pleased, went into Banks’ Bore mode and kept pointing to every B&B in the village and demanding - “Surely, there must be room in this inn???”  Even Jenny’s husband got short shrift as he rang for directions to her daughter’s ballet lesson.  If this wasn’t bad enough it was also about now that Jenny stepped her right foot into a very ripe cowpat.  She is now cowpat queen - heehee.

As we slowly walked into Walton, Carole commented that with all this walking, we were both surely at our physical peak or as athletes would say “in the zone”.  Jenny did not answer - she had reached our next B&B!!!

Feet report
jenny  all well
Carole amazingly no plasters

alcohol report

CENSORED _ DUE TO TOO MUCH CRITICISM ON THIS BLOG SITE

stile report
we climbed 32 stiles today - owwwww

Thanks for all your comments. please keep them coming as we have now walked over 60miles and we know it!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Hadrian's Wall - 4th-11th July 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.