I’m out the door as soon as it looks likely to stay dry for the rest of the day, which this morning means about eleven. I haul the bike out of the tool shed where the two BF’s are snuggled in between some yard tools and a wheelbarrow, and immediately it starts drizzling. Too soon, I decide; and head back up to the room after I lean the unlocked bike against the nearest wall, unconcerned that any bike thieves will show up this morning out here in the country.
It’s still there when I come back down a half hour later and coast down to Military Road, the rather busy road that runs east-west along the front of the wall. I turn right at the junction next to Milecastle Inn and bike to the next paved road to the north, the road to Cawburn and beyond. This one cuts through Caw Gap, another low spot in the ridge the wall rolls along, and when I come to the gap I stop and lean the bike unlocked against the inside of the roadside fence. The plan is mostly to bike today but on the back of the bike I’ve brought the hiking pole and lock with the idea that I’ll stop for a short walk here and later when I recross the wall another mile or two to the east. I probably should lock the bike up here but the risk seems really low and I’ll be in sight of it most of the time I’m gone.
I assemble the pole, put on my raincoat just in case, and start climbing west toward the point where I turned back yesterday. It’s not a long walk but I get far enough that I can see over the high point of this part of the ridge down to about where I stood last night. Visibility isn’t the best though, and when I turn back toward the bike it starts lightly raining and makes me wonder if this outing is going to be much shorter than envisioned.
The view west. The high point just ahead is the one I was climbing up to from the other direction last night.
A brief patch of sun breaks through, but doesn’t last long. That little spike below is the one at the quarry I began last night’s walk from. This is far enough, and the natural spot to turn back.
Looking east this time, back to the gap where the bike is parked. The stretch of the ridge I’m walking along now is lower and less steep than the one that starts just beyond the gap.
Grey but peaceful to the north today. Not an invader in sight, unless it’s those sheep. Maybe it’s an army in disguise, like Odysseus and his men trying to slip past the blinded Cyclops.
The climb from Caw Gap. As Rachael will verify later, the walking gets considerably more challenging from this point eastward, with one steep climb and descent following another.
Fortunately the drizzle stops by about the time I get back to the bike, and soon I’m heading north coasting down from the gap. The plan is to follow this unnamed road north into Northumberland National Park until the pavement ends in three or more miles, and then continue on further past pavement’s end for as far as the conditions and will support. The sky is breaking up and it’s a lovely ride as I roll my way north, gradually climbing toward the high point of the ride which comes at pavement’s end. Partway there I cross a cattle guard, enter open range land, and start scattering startled sheep away from my path.
After this brief but steep drop from Caw Gap it’s mostly a gradual climb to the high point of the ride.
I come to the end of the pavement and get discouraged by the sight ahead. Other than a rough rocky patch right at the top the surface beyond doesn’t look too bad, but it’s downhill and drops into woods where I’ll lose the views. It doesn’t entice me to continue on so I decide to turn back here and make an easy day of it.
I have mixed feelings about it in retrospect though, and wish I’d kept on. It’s four and a half miles until it returns to pavement o the other side, and when it does it’s not another two miles to the point where I turned back on my day ride from Hexham. Biking nine off-pavement miles doesn’t sound the best but I like the idea of closing the gap with that previous ride.
The next several miles backtrack toward the wall. I’ve just been here, but it looks different going this direction and the light has improved too so it’s worth several more stops.
A view toward the next section to the east of the ridge. This one, which drops off precipitously on the side facing us, is the high point of Hadrian’s Wall.
Dropping to Caw Burn. The road angling up to the right passes through Caw Gap, the spot where I left the bike and walked a short section of the wall earlier. I’m not going back that way though. At the bottom I’ll turn left and climb toward the next gap to the east.
It’s not long (in distance anyway, though it takes me awhile because I stop for the views so often) before I come to Peel Gap. Once again I stop here and lock up the bike for a short walk, but this time I don’t get far at all. Peel gap is even more rugged than Caw Gap, with very steep rocky grades in both directions. Rachael will make it this far and beyond on her walk later in the day, and her track shows a maximum grade of about 36% somewhere in here. I’m pretty content to just admire the views and try to remember what I can from our first visit to the wall almost 20 years ago. That time, we stayed at the lodge down at Twice-Brewed just below this gap and after a forty mile bike ride hiked up here and then east from here to Housesteads before catching a bus back. Hard to imagine now.
After that I drop from the gap and stop in at Twice Brewed Inn for a bowl of soup before biking back to our B&B. Not much of a ride then - only 13 miles again, plus a bit of walking. A great day though, another episode of what I’m coming to think of as my hikes with wheels.
That water ahead is Crag Lough. The gap to the right is the famous Sycamore Gap, one of the most iconic spots on the wall because it until recently had a majesric sycamore growing right at the bottom of its U-shaped dip. In an unfathomable senseless act, vandas cut the tree down last autumn, ruining it for everyone. Idiotic and depressing.
I check the mail while up I’m waiting for my soup to arrive and am surprised to see there’s a message from Rachael announcing that she’s just starting on her walk but will be back in time for dinner. Surprising because it’s 1:30 and she’s just getting started as I can see from the invitation to follow along that Garmin sent my way. Later she’ll tell me that she had a similar experience to me - she started out but turned back when she discovered it was raining. By the time it stopped it was late enough that she decided to have lunch and digest awhile first.
Dinner’s at six, so it’s especially impressive how much of a walk she got in - all the way past Sycamore Gap and back, not all that much less ground than I covered on the bike. I’m humbled.
It didn’t come easy though, because as you’ve seen it’s a very challenging walk full of steep slopes and staircases. In just over ten miles she put in over 2,000’ of climbing and a matching amount of descending. It makes my knees hurt just thinking about it.
She’s thoroughly spent when she shows up at the room, just a half hour before we have to turn around and walk back down to the restaurant. She raced through much of the last half of the walk when she realized she was in time trouble, and arrived thoroughly spent and aching.
We’ll see a lot of the same settings I showed you yesterday and above, but seen in a different light, through different eyes and with a different lens.
I can’t figure out what this curious feature is. It was shot somewhere between Caw Gap and Peel Gap, but there’s nothing indicated on the map. Rachael will have to go back and look for a plaque or something.
Bob KoreisIt's the "trig" (whatever that means) point of the wall.
" . . . the top of Winshield Crags, the highest point on Hadrian’s Wall at 1,132 ft / 345m." Reply to this comment 3 months ago
Scott AndersonTo Bob KoreisGreat! Thanks so much. I tried to talk Rachael into heading back there, but she’s not having it. Reply to this comment 3 months ago
Polly LowYes, a trig (= triangulation) point. They were used by the Ordnance Survey for mapping (back in the Olden Days, before digital mapping was a thing): https://trigpointing.uk/info/trigpoints.php Reply to this comment 3 months ago
Rachael AndersonTo Patrick O'HaraIt really slows you down on the steep, narrow steps and trails! Even more so when there are lots of people on the trail. Reply to this comment 3 months ago
