Day 2: Friday 2nd June

In contrast to yesterday, the morning was fabulous. Blazing sunlight hit me as I opened the curtains. Got a great night’s sleep – soaking my feet in the room’s large rubbish bin full of water (in lieu of the promised bath) helped immeasurably last night and I was amazed not to have any niggling aches/pains/ricks/strains. Just very tired.

Heather had to go to work today (nearly 40 miles to Newcastle along the A69) and as she stole out at an unearthly hour I promised faithfully I had retrieved everything from the car that I would need (I had filled the rucksack up with waterproofs(….WHY…?) a Gore-Tex bivi bag, food, water, stove, change of socks, spare t-shirt, camera, phone, sunglasses, spare shorts…etc. etc.) so basically I would be OK for the whole day. I bade her farewell and got my head down for another couple of hours.

I sat down for brekkers (definitely full English this morning as no running today) with a feeling of foreboding rattling around both brain cells…….BALLS! My wonderful painkillers that numbed the aches yesterday. They were still in the car. In Newcastle. Ach! Never mind – didn’t start this in the knowledge that I’d get through unscathed did I? Didn’t get through 9 years in the TA using pills did I? (Actually a haze of alcohol helped a lot of the time.)

So, bacon, egg etc. along with strong tea inside me, I settled up and was dismayed to find no discount for the breakfast Heather hadn’t eaten (if you get my drift). So I got my rucksack and bimbled off in a huff. As the B&B was about a kilometre away from the wall itself, the proprietor had helpfully advised me ‘just to follow the path’ round the back of the farm buildings and ‘the wall’s straight ahead of you’. Ha! You can see the route I took below.

A rather circuitous Route

There was no bloody track there. Nothing. The map I had showed marshes all around me (remember I had no boots) so I was debating going back to the main road and walking the long way around to the start when I found a National Trust sign that had fallen over about 400 metres away – only then did I know I was going the right way.

As usual, pursued by daft sheep that wanted their breakfast. Honestly – I might have been brought up in a town but I’m not entirely unfamiliar (not in the biblical sense, you understand) with livestock after much time spent at Otterburn, Catterick, Sennybridge et al. But these buggers were something else. I’ve decided I don’t like things with horns now. Or big shaggy things that might well hurt you if they sat on you.

They were just bloody tiresome. There you are, trying to work out where a 73 mile-long World Heritage Site of masonry, bricks and German walkers is and:

“Meeeeeeeeehhhhhhhh” said Sean the b****** sheep in me lughole (at 70 decibels).

Do you know how far a map can be blown when you’ve dropped it in a high wind?

I eventually rejoined the wall after an hour’s flailing about with the map and a 20 minute yomp uphill to the hilariously named Cockmount Hill. I seemed to have lost quite a bit of time. But the views were definitely worth it. Looking East towards Caw Gap, Winshields Crags and beyond was stunning in the fantastic sunlight.

The Views

Anyway – back to walking. I was struggling to keep a decent pace as the sun was starting to beat down now quite harshly and I could feel my legs starting to heat up. I took the rucksack off for a shufty around for my sunblock. After quite a thorough shufty with the entire contents emptied smartly on the grass I came to the conclusion that my happy pills weren’t the only thing I’d forgotten to get out of the car. Balls. Thank God I had a hat.

Here on in, I wish someone had come with me. Again, the views were spectacular but some of the clambering was quite dangerous with a full rucksack – I felt that maybe I should have done a little more training over terrain like this with weight on my back. Sycamore Gap in particular was daunting and when I got to the top I was confronted by dozens of whinging American school kids complaining about the hills, the flies, etc, which helped my humour no end.

Sycamore Gap

Lunch was a blessed relief out of the sun for me as I was started to cook nicely (on one side only, for added comic effect). I traipsed the best part of a kilometre from the wall through Houseteads fort to the visitor centre next to the B6168 Military Road and bought lunch there.

Houseteads

I was quite tired and much in need of a rest after 4 hours of up and down climbing and descent that most people take a whole day to complete. A cheese sandwich from a cheesed-off lassie at the counter and a bottle of coke later I had a wee nap. If the screaming kids had let me, that is. It was very busy with lots of tourists and bikers who sat round boiling in their leather suits. The sun was very intense now, but as there was a fierce wind you hardly noticed it until you were sheltered.

I had decided not to bother trailing all the way up the steep track back to the wall just to hit the path at the top and saw on the map that if I went along the main road for a couple of KM I could follow a bridleway back up to the wall covering about a third of the distance and ending up further East that I would have anyway. Sorted.

At this point I would like to mention that pretty much constantly I had been receiving text messages from my colleagues since the preceding afternoon (which helpded my morale immensely - thank you all. But Linda and Janet, shame on you) and several times had had to postpone a tricky descent because a text arrived at a critical time. Just as I was about to step off a high stile to start the climb back up to the path, Saf on our helpdesk sent me a text. Oh dear! Crack! went my ankle as I tried to read my phone and step off at the same time.

Now I have to admit that on occasion I do employ the odd profanity or two to get my point across. This happened to be one of those occasions. I honestly thought it was game over like Michael Owen last night.….I know - I'm such a drama queen…

Dalkin

I digress. After swearing at every living thing within a mile of me (I was glad to have an excuse to have a go at the sheep anyway – although (again) not in the biblical sense, you understand) I took a few tentative whining “ooh, ahh, eeh” steps and realised it wasn’t that bad. Obviously all you lasses would have given yourselves a shake, run off, completed the thing at a canter, collected the kids from school, done the month’s shopping and sneered at the men complaining about a little bit of pain…but us blokes take pain seriously. Childbirth? Pah! It merely smarts a bit, I’m sure!

So I dragged my sorry ass back up the hill, rejoined the trail andpresently came to Sewingshields crag.

Sewingshields

Now those of you who know me well will know I’m a Big Girl’s Blouse anyway. But the lack of painkillers, the sunburn and my aching ankle all started to work against me now. Another thing was I had failed to reccie this part of the walk properly and had assumed that the ground (which you can see from the road) was nice and level where in fact it was like marching over sand dunes - the odd gradients and hillocks placed a great strain on my ankle which wore me down quickly.

From here until the end of the day things started to slow right down. I was uncertain I would make my RV with Heather at 5 o’clock but I did. Just. Just short of Chollerford and about 16 miles covered for the day.

H. picked me up with my trainers and most of the kit strewn out on the ground next to me. I was in a grumpy heap trying to get out of the sun, working out the route to our accommodation for the night at Sue Jackson’s gaff at Haydon Bridge.

Add to my near sunstroke, a healthy limp and the general weariness the fact that Heather had had a stinker of a day at work and was obviously expecting a more grateful passenger than could be deduced from a grunt of “You’re late” as I shoved my kit into the car and you have a recipe for a colourful ‘domestic’!

Nevertheless we made it to Haydon Bridge albeit with the minimum of conversation and to Sue’s country club! Wow! What a place. A wonderful three storey townhouse it has it’s own bat colony, an ensemble of bright, friendly and polite children (Ed and Tom) and a BFG (Dr. Mike) to boot.

The BFG

With a curry house across the way and their own fishing rights to the South Tyne river it seemed very grand! Although I’m SURE there were priestholes in that place I couldn’t prove it. After a post-mortem of the day’s events (a chance to show off my sunburn) and a hobble (a more advanced limp) into the shower cue the promised curry.

Curry Time!

Lovely jubbly! Beef Rogan with Garlic naan and a glass of white wine ‘cos I was in polite company. Really, the hospitality was exceptional and we even got to see the best of the Ripping Yarns series: Golden Graham. A great day’s walking and a fantastic 17th Century bedroom to sleep in. Doesn’t get much better than this. And with a selection of mood-altering drugs inside me I dropped off to sleep ready for the next day’s travails.

iPod Playlist

Thursday 1st June

The morning started grey and forboding. It looked like rain - you know that rain that gets you realy wet. The clouds were skipping over the sky from the Solway Firth at a fair rate of knots.

We breakfasted at the Little Chef adjacent to the hotel. As usual in the UK, the fare on offer was dull but seeing as I wouldn't be able to do anything other than walk if I got a full english, toast and tea was taken.

I wanted to get going ASAP as I expected to get stuck in the Carlisle rush hour. We set off at 0830 but apparently Carlisle doesn't have a rush hour so we got straight through and drove the long straight 12 miles to Bowness. I already checked the Easy Tides website some months hence as that part of the country seems to be underwater a lot of the time so I knew we'd be alright. Bowness is shown below and is a charming wee place. And it IS wee! According to Visit Cumbria, there used to be a viaduct linking Bowness and Annan across the whole width of the Solway Firth (over a mile) to link the railways either side of the border. Apparently the Scots preferred to close it than let their people use it a thoroughfare for illicit Sunday night drinking in England. Allegedly.

I set off about 0900. There were a lot of people around the start of the walk. But it was hard to seperate the tweedy hairy twitchers (The area is an AONB) from the tweedy hairy walkers. Unfortunately I neglected to get a photo from the start so here is one I nicked earlier:

The next couple of hours went like a dream. However, a picture I took with my phone and texted to work tells another story:
By the time I got started and avoided a succession of relcalcitrant bulls, sheep and other walkers; rearranged my iPod, and was chased by two dogs I got a fairly decent pace going. I did the next 10 1/2 miles before 1100 and rested at Kirkandrews on Eden before completing the remainder into Carlisle at a gentle pace .

This was most of the running done for the trip. Which was a shame as I'd enjoyed the morning. And West Cumbria has some of the nicest van drivers I've ever met - even the white ones gave me the thumbs-up which could have been thanks for me wearing a high-viz vest (most of the beardies thought they could wear dark colours and expect not to be run over)

The weather turned out ot be perfect for running - overcast but warm enough to be comfortable. And no rain as it turned out!



Heather picked me up and we lunched in the exotic confines of Morrisons at Carlisle. Heather gave me a lift through the city to the A689 a couple of kilometres outside. Here the sun came out and I topped up my Camelbak with another two litres of water, glucose and carb mix. I ran the next 4 - 5 miles or so until just outside Brampton where I had another rest. After checking in with work just south of Carlisle airport, I found that the decision to follow a trunk road (the A689) for such a distance was a tad dangerous to say the least - but this was saving me valuable distance and TIME as we had to be at the B&B in Greenhead no later than 6. The proximity of lorries and other large traffic to me was most disconcerting, thank god for the bright vest again! Plus - I've never seen so many tractors and queues of traffic in my life which only served to enrage the more impatient drivers.

Mid-afternoon, we found ourselves in Brampton. The plan was to follow the A69 further but i was unwilling to risk my neck any more on narrow verges and roads without cycle lanes as a buffer for me. Heather took me on a reccie of the A69 to the other side of Brampton and another five miles East of the village. As I thought, there was no way I was going to risk walking along here as I got more tired and the chances of stumbling under the wheels of a Belgian truck increased! H. took me back to Brampton and I changed the route to pass through Eastern end of Brampton, down and across the Irthing Valley. I passed Lanercost Priory and up the side of the valley to rejoin the trail at the top. As I walked past the Priory (shown below) the weather was glorious and it triggered the memory that I had actually stayed in the Priory in 1991 on a TA weekend (I also remembered the local pub being taken over by our Company). What a strange coincidence. I reckon I was up to about 20-odd miles at this point.


It's a pity, but I was taking pictures of the landscape along the way (the Irthing Valley in particular is stunning) but my phone wasn't up to the job (it's getting on a bit) so I wasn't able to do justice to the vista when organising the pictures and a lot of images were wasted - Sorry!

I had arranged to meet Heather further along the trail at Bankhead Turret. I made it about 3.30 and had a bit of a rest. I topped up my water for the third time that day - the sun was really starting to beat down now! Hereafter, it was a fairly straigtforward journey for the next hour and a half as I got more tired and the pace dropped. Birdoswald was made about 5.00 after a few jovial conversations with fellow trampers. I was anxious to make it to the B&B sharpish so I could get my feet soaked.

As it turned out, that proved to be harder than I thought. Whilst the B&B (just outside Greenhead) seemed OK when contacted there was no bath, no evening meal on offer. I had to use the rubbish bin in the room as a foot spa when filled with cold water - ahhh, bliss! We went into Haltwhistle (proclaimed as the 'centre of mainland Britain') for our tea and after sorting the wheat from the chaff found the traditional Black Bull where we both had pasta dishes and I indulged in a pint of ale. An hour later I was out on my feet and had to be shuttled back to bed and lovely clean crisp sheets.

iPod: Compiled in advance was a long playlist consisting of: Black Grape, The Happy Mondays, the hilarious Electric Six, Radiohead's 'OK Computer', Space, Paul Weller, Snow Patrol, New Order and Feeder.

The final days before...

In the week before I started I did two final runs, on the Saturday I took my new rucksack to the picnic area 7 miles up the road to Rowley where I prepared a lunch of Mr Noodles' KIMCHI spicy soup. This was prepared on a wee gas stove I've been coveting for the past few years since I left the TA. This was a trial run for the second day - all the kit I'd need was with me and it wasn't too much of a burden at all. I ran most of the way back was was unexpected (and I tried out one of the painkillers I'd purloined from a colleague at work (you know who you are) which turned out to be absolutely splendid as I passed the 10 mile mark with no aches at all. Recovery time was also down - I was able to go out for a 6 miler the next morning with Millie (in torrential rain as it turned out) with no ill-effects.

Then, on the Tuesday I did a final 8 miler which was pretty boring and monotonous. I was wanting to get out there and get this thing over with. I was sick of training. Bring it on!

Kit preparation for the event....

As well as the already established essentials of such an undertaking (iPods, painkillers, Sudocrem nappy rash cream, etc.) I found that what I also needed some other articles of equipment centred around 3 main needs:

1. Carrying capacity
2. Good footwear
3. How to carry the necessary water

Carrying capacity: The timetable for the 2nd day meant that as I would be on my own for about 9 hours so I needed to be able to carry water, food, waterproofs and a Goretex Bivi Bag (a welcome buckshee leaving present from the TA. However I only had an old army rucksack that was far too clapped-out for my needs. As well as being new, whatever I bought had to be waterproof, comfortable and well-balanced as I was to be clambering over walls and stiles, etc. I found an excellent product at Tesco in the shape of a 45 litre rucksack for less than 15 notes - bargain! It had all sorts of wee pockets and a great assortment of ergonomic straps to keep it comfy for a long trip. Anyway - no point forking out a fortune on something from Berghaus when I've no intention of going anywhere near Mont Blanc! I'll get you a picture of this little gem soon!

Footwear: Seeing as I inherited flat feet from my Dad, I needed something to give my arches a great deal of support as well as good cushioning properties. I found that on any training run that I did over 10 miles or so, they started to ache, not due to pressure sores but simply lack of support. So I consulted Colin at work as he is a daft fitness freak (marathons, hurtling down a mountainside on bikes, etc.) and it turns out he has crap feet like me as well. He recommended some specialist trainers from New Balance - these are NB761s (see below) these were an absolute godsend for me! With firm support and excellent shock absorbing along with soft but tough linings, these puppies meant business!

I had experimented with some cheap walking boots (Hi-Tecs) but you get what you pay for - whilst they were initially quite comfortable, I soon wore through the lining and suffered from terrible blisters thereafter. Moral of the story - don't cut corners with your feet (that doesn't sound quite right does it...?)
















Water: that most important of commodities if you're bimbling about rapidly in the countryside. I initially went to Nevisport in the Boro to find one of those bottle-carrying belts that I have seen people use over the years and the salesman tried to flog me one of those poncy Camelbak water carrying rucksacks.

No siree! I wanted to keep it traditional (I was brought up on waterbottles in the TA). Get with the modern world says he! But I in my ignorance maintained I wanted bottles. Well I couldn't buy one anywhere at all.

So a week later I was in Darlington in the running and cycling shops (names I don't recall but they're both in Bondgate) and I gave in and purchased a Camelbak after trying one on. What an important piece of kit - only second in priority to the trainers! I wouldn't do anything like this again without one. My particular model is below - a 2 litre affair that is SO comfie to wear it's untrue. Bottles - pah! As well as carrying the water bladder in the provided small bag, it turns out you can remove it and put it into a larger model which was ideal for my purposes.

In addition to this, I bought some SiS GO! Carbohydrate powder as I've seen people with heat stroke as well as cramps through lack of electrolytes and it's not pretty - this stuff should help prevent that.

Mission Accomplished

Well I did it.

Full notes from Techietrek will appear here shortly as I've been in bed all day. Below is a picture from the finish at Segedunum Museum at Wallsend, 17:20 on Saturday 3rd June.

Interim update from sunny, salubrious Haydon Bridge

Hiya everyone. This is an unexpected update from Sue Jackson's country estate with excusive fishing and oil exploration rights to the North Tyne. Below are a few piccies from the expedition so far. Explanations to follow: