HIKING HADRIAN'S WALL

         

We have just spent the last few days immersed in the year 132.  A year with only 3 digits: such an anomaly for us four-digit, two-thousand-years-plus time residents.  One-thirty-two was the time, and the place was the outermost reaches of the vast and mighty Roman Empire.  Encompassing all of Europe and stretching as far east as modern-day Iraq, the Empire’s northernmost limit was the wild and beautiful island of Brittania.  And the seam along the edge of the Empire’s massive cloak, flung over islands and continents alike, was Hadrian’s Wall, a 73-mile long border stitched into the fabric of steep hills and rolling green fields that demarcated the end of the known world.  On one side of this ragged seam were the barbarian lands; on the other the Roman Empire.  Maintaining the line between the two were 20,000 soldiers of the Empire, some from Rome and modern-day Italy, but many others from what is now Belgium, Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, France and even Africa.  To control the movement of the barbarians and also mark the edge of his domain, Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of a massive wall. It took ten years and thousands of men to do it, but by the year 132 the job was done:  a solid stone wall, backed by forts and dotted with gates and observation towers, stretching from one side of the island to the other.  

 

Hadrian’s Wall connects the North Sea and the city of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the east with the city of Carlisle and the mighty Atlantic in the west.  We hiked along the mid-section of the Wall and to get there, we hopped a train from York to Newcastle and another from Newcastle to a tiny village with the best imaginable town-along-a-rail-line name:  Haltwhistle.  We traveled light, almost deliriously light.  We stowed our 40-pound backpacks in a storage closet in our hotel in York and threw a change of underwear, a book, toothbrushes and a few coats and sweaters into our daypacks and walked, feeling as light as air, to the York train station where we caught one of the fast commuter trains to Newcastle that departs from York every 10 minutes in the morning.  An hour later, we were in the Newcastle station with just enough time to grab a coffee before we climbed onto an old 2-car train that chugged along the length of the Wall, parallel to it but miles away from it.  An hour later we pulled into Haltwhistle. 

 

We had reservations at a B&B that we’d made just a few days before.  The towns of Hexam and Haltwhistle, located at about the mid-point of the Wall, feature inns that cater to people visiting it or hiking its length.  I hadn’t thought it would be hard to find a place to stay since we were arriving on a Tuesday but place after place I called was booked, and one finally explained that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are their busiest days since hikers leave Newcastle on a Saturday and generally arrive in the towns in mid-week.  But we finally found an inn in Haltwhistle that had a room for 3 and we grabbed it.  

 

But we had other places to see before we headed to our inn, and with the help of the tiny tourist information office in Haltwhistle, we got the timetable for the bus that goes up and down the Wall.  Its number?  The AD132, of course.  Off we went to the Once Brewed National Park office which oversees the Northumberland National Park that weaves above, below and around the wall.  Once Brewed?  What’s with the name?  No idea. 

 

We walked up a narrow little road to the top of a hill, the road bordered on either side by glistening green fields inhabited by scores of ewes and their utterly adorable lambs.  Black faced and black legged lambs; lambs with big sticky-out ears; lambs that stared at us, big-eyed and wary, and then scuttled to the safety of mother.  The ewes had long knotty wool coats that hung down like dreadlocks over their sides.  Rasta Ewes.  Given the long, vacant gazes they were prone to, standing stock still in the field and staring off into the distance, they may have gotten into some very good grass. 

 

Stretching along the spine of the hills like a stone backbone was Hadrian’s Wall.  Running down from it and criss-crossing the endless fields that were peopled – or should I say, sheepled – with ewes and lambs were other stone walls built, in part, from rocks quarried from the Wall.  It is taller in some parts than others, but in the mid-section it stands six to seven feet high and a foot or two wide.  Grey stones carefully laid, one on top of the other, by hands from an ancient time.  There’s no fencing around it; no “Do Not Touch” signs or security guards keeping an eye on it.  It follows the ridge tops of the surprisingly steep hills, appearing at times like a spinal column, and at other times like a lichen-covered snake sinuously winding down the sides and up the inclines of the hills.  The fields slide down on other side of the Wall, stretching out for miles and miles to a line of distant mountains. 

 

We followed the Wall, climbing from valleys up the side of hills, the incline almost vertical, leaning on the Wall for support at times.  From the crest of the hill was an amazing 360 degree panoramic view of the valleys and farms.  It was sunny and blue-skied with a nice breeze, chilly enough to make a couple of layers welcome.  Up and down we climbed, passing occasional hiking groups, but otherwise alone with the Wall and the fields and the distant echo through time of the men who were garrisoned along it, who stood duty in its watchtowers which we hiked past, a square of stones marking the spot where an observatory had been, manned with soldiers who were bored and cold and edgy, watching for invaders who occasionally made forays against the occupying force. 

 

We came down off the Wall in time to catch the last AD132 bus into Haltwhistle, and we located our inn a few steps off the High Street.  We had hiked the Wall with our daypacks on and we were looking forward to dropping them, and ourselves, onto something softer and more comfortable than a dirt path.  The inn was surrounded with meticulously manicured gardens and the woman who greeted us was efficient and welcoming, showing us up a sweeping staircase that led to our suite.  After nights of a cramped hotel room in York where you could hardly walk without stumbling over a bed, the suite was the size of a small island nation.  The bed could have comfortably held the entire Von Trapp family, and off the bedroom was another separate room with two twin beds and its own TV, which Max claimed.  Walking into the bathroom was a near religious experience.  God knows I like a clean bathroom, and I have prided myself on creating a sparkling loo, but this bathroom glittered, as if it had just been built, just painted, just polished, by a group of fairy cleaners or some skilled toi-toi magicians.  Everything glittered:  not just the sink and shower, but the fixtures above them.  I swear the insides of the fixtures glowed.  The entire suite looked as if the painters had just left, along with the carpet-layers, the designers and the team of wizarding cleaners.  I wanted to just stand and admire this level of perfection; the Mona Lisa of bathrooms adjoining the Sistine Chapels of bedrooms.  But we tore ourselves out of our happy surroundings and trotted to the local pub to have pints of bitter and dinner, and then back to Xanadu for a good sleep. 

 

The next morning we went downstairs for a breakfast that would have qualified as an official UN food drop into a cyclone-ravaged country or a complete AID shipment to a starving village.  Every breakfast food imaginable was offered by a waitress who actually asked me if I’d like my toast “in a pretty arrangement” around my eggs or not.  Who would say no to this?  What hard-hearted diner would choose their toast in a tossed heap over a pretty arrangement? 

 

Filled to the gills with breakfast, we donned our daypacks and caught the AD132 to Vindolanda, an amazing archaeological dig and museum a mile off the Wall.  Excavations have been ongoing for years, revealing the outline of a Roman fort named Vindolanda, which had baths, graneries, houses and shops, and a village that clustered outside of the fort’s impressive walls.  We walked among the homes of the long-gone residents, and then bussed to another museum dedicated to the Roman soldier, which almost caused Max’s mind to utterly melt and run in tiny rivulets out of his ears, it was so cool. 

 

Then back onto the Wall for a “short” hike that a kindly museum lady recommended.  The hike was “lovely and easy to find, a lovely trail, can’t miss it” and so off we went.  And proceeded to walk our little legs off.  Up vertical hills to reach the summit and lean, gasping, against the Wall, down into valleys pursued, at one point, by an angry ewe, only to climb another  vertical incline, on and on we hiked, with nary a single signpost in sight.  The newer walls that demarcated farmer’s fields were topped by old wooden styls that we clambered over, and there would be the symbol of an acorn painted onto the styl to show that we were still on the Wall trail, which curved in and out of a national park, and off and on farms and farmer fields.  We hiked and hiked, the wall taller than us at times and then shorter; hiked until Max and Jeff were harboring very unkind thoughts about me and my insistence that we do this hike.  On through the sunny glorious afternoon and cool breezes, the trail a faint path at times, until finally we came to a farm where the farmer pointed down the valley to a building glistening in the gloaming, pronouncing it the “Mile Castle Inn” where we could catch the AD132 into town and the train station. 

 

Off we staggered to the mythical building in the distance, humming marching songs, trying to remember what it felt like to sit, quietly, in a soft chair, on and on we hiked, at times trying to hitch rides with passing motorists (who ignored us, the cold-hearted sods) until we reached the Inn only to discover . . .  we’d missed the stupid, hateful, crappy AD132 bus by 10 hateful minutes and – oh joy – it was the last bus of the day.  But not to be downhearted – it was a mere 2 ½ miles into Haltwhistle and “most of it” declared the beaming man drinking a big pint of beer with his cheery friends outside of the inn, “most of it is downhill.”  Fine, I said between clenched teeth, fine, we said, hobbling up yet another bloody hill, our bloody feet leaving bloody prints behind us on the bloody pavement, FINE, as we dodged oncoming vehicles, watching the sun sink and wondering when, exactly, the last train left Haltwhistle, FFF—IIII—NNNN—EEE we hissed, literally running down the hills into town, intent now on getting to the train station in time for the last train or an aneuryism, whichever came first.  Until finally, we got to the train station and saw that yes, YES, we’d made it in time for the 7:08 PM train, which conveniently arrived a mere 15 minutes late, and into Newcastle we went, where we caught another train to York, staggering back to our hotel at 11:00, our feet numb but our spirits unbroken.  We’d put in a 10-mile day along the Wall like the good Roman soldiers of yore.  

 

We went to sleep murmuring, Hail Hadrian, Emperor of Rome and all of her territories.  Hail my feet, which didn’t fail me.  Hail British Rail, which got me there and back again.  Hail travel, hail adventures . . . .  oh what the hail!