Tuesday: Carlisle to Gilsland

The obligatory whinge

I knew this was going to be a hard day. First day over 20 miles, first day with a full pack, first day with real hills. Indeed it was hard. I tried to keep up a gentle steady pace of just over 3mph, on the flat at least, but the last 5 miles took me well over 2 hours. The worst part was that rest stops didn’t seem to help much, because it took a good ten minutes to get started again. I suppose there might have been just a teeny weeny bit of arrogance in thinking that I could still do stuff that didn’t hurt thirty years ago.

But apart from that…

…it was a really fine walk. The first few miles out of Carlisle are fairly mundane, though pleasant enough, passing through well-kept villages and offering distant views of the Lake District and the Pennines near Shap. Evidence of Romans was in fairly short supply, though: just a few villages with “wall” in their name (Walby, Oldwall, Walton) and a grassy bank that goes in a suspiciously straight line. Above Walton, though, things change rapidly. There’s a remarkably tall (3.5m) section of wall preserved at Hare Hill.

Apparently it had already been incorporated into a farm cottage, and so was spared when so much other Wall stone was creatively repurposed to build Lanercost Priory nearby.
East of Hare Hill the wall follows the crest of a steep river valley. A long continuous stretch of the Wall is preserved here, and many of its structures are still visible. Some, such as Banks East lookout station, are quite large and impressive.

Just before Birdoswald there are impressive traces of the earth banks that ran parallel to the Wall itself.

The fort at Birdoswald has imposing ruins:

but I was too late to be allowed in, and had to make do with a very welcome cup of tea.
Just east of Birdoswald the path heads rapidly down to cross the River Irthing, and after that the ruins are truly spectacular – here are the abutments where the Wall spanned the river:

From there it was only 20 minutes before I reached the excellent Samson Inn. The first pint was an agreeable light (3% ABV) local pale beer, but it was so welcome that I probably wouldn’t have complained if it were Watney’s Red Barrel.
Time for bed now. A short day tomorrow – only about 12 miles – but a craggy one.