Hiking across England: Day 2

After doing almost a marathon of walking on Day 1, we awoke to rather sore legs. Our sleep on the footpath had been quite cold and damp. I had tried to stuff my backpack and boots into the bottom of my bivy bag and it meant my head poked out of cover more than I would have liked it to. At least I had dry boots though.

We could finally see where we had slept now the Sun had risen. The entire field was bathed in direct sunlight apart from us. An awkwardly placed oak tree in the distance caused us to have dappled light. We had to wait another 15 minutes before our sleeping bags got a nice dose of warming radiation.

Getting moving again

After spending quite a while afraid to get out of bed and attempting to stand due to our expected leg damage, we finally got up. It was worse than we could have thought. We sluggishly got our boots on and packed our gear up whilst a rather strange man acted weirdly in the distance along the path. He seemed to be checking us out but never approached us. We never saw him again.

We were rolling again. My feet were brutalised. The previous day had been the first time I ever used my new boots - which I had bought the day before that. We had a goal of getting at least 20 miles (32km) done. As we started walking at 11am it was probably a bit ambitious as the Sun was due to set at around 5pm. We didn't mind a bit of darkness though.

As the steps went by the pain resided - or maybe our feet just got numb to the onslaught. We dreamed up the idea that talcum (baby) powder would help alleviate some of the friction. So, we started visualising buying some in the next town along. Unfortunately, that town was about 10 miles (16km) ahead. It doesn't sound like much but when you're hiking with fully loaded backpacks that takes a lot longer than you would like to imagine.

Rather interesting wall feature (not Hadrian's Wall)

Lovely path for walking all day long

The miles were slowly reeled in as we made our way through our food supplies. I had recently bought some high-calorie, long-life Datrex survival food bars as I had been building up a bug-out bag. They have the simple ingredients of wheat flour, vegetable shortening, cane sugar, water, coconut flavouring and salt. I wasn't expecting much from them as I sat down on a style for a quick snack break. They were very crumbly but tasted pretty good. That may just have been because I had been working up an appetite though.

The landscape began to open up as we got to a higher position. We were treated to a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside and the Roman influence on the lay of the land became obvious. Large trenches and earthworks became visible. Very impressive to think that all that material was shifted 2000 years ago. Walking through farmland naturally meant we bumped into many livestock too. Sheep were most common but the least friendly apart from the odd curious one. Luckily for them we weren't that hungry - just yet.

Making friends on the trail

Views to the south

Remains of Roman trench fortifications

Light started to fade. Our pace was much lower than we had been hoping. Many factors contributed to this. The first day had mainly been on paved surfaces and relatively flat as we had been shadowing the river Tyne. This day so far had been almost entirely dirt or mud trail and had a lot of undulations. Not to mention we were fried from walking 25 miles to day before! We pushed on anyway and ate up more miles with the fantasy of foot-healing talcum powder on the horizon.

An old tree plantation

A new tree plantation

Expansive views to the north as light begins to fade

It may seem strange to you that we had been hiking for almost 2 full days and had yet to see any of the original wall apart from some ruins at the beginning. This is mainly due to the fact that a lot of the wall had been repurposed over the years and used to build houses in the local area. It wasn't too much of a historical big deal in the past. People seemed to want to have a sheltered place to sleep rather than conserve a wall. This was about to change though. As we entered a field filled with young cows we were surprised to find a big chunk of stone. It was the original Roman Hadrian's Wall!

It couldn't have happened at a more beautiful moment either. We were nearing the first town of the day (yes, in the dark) and the Sun was giving us a beautiful display as it sank below the horizon. This discovery reenergised our spirits and gave us the motivation we needed to cover the next few miles. That is, of course, until the official walking route took us on a long-cut that essentially doubled the distance we had to hike to reach the town. What a bummer.

The first section of the original wall we came across

Sent on a long-cut but at least it was pretty

We had envisioned the town being medium-sized with a couple of shops and some restaurants but in reality it was absolutely tiny. There was one petrol station and a hotel with a restaurant. Our talcum hopes were crushed in seconds. All day we had been praying for relief. It was not granted. We decided to venture into the hotel to warm up and grab some chips (the English ones). There was a fireplace with empty seats next to it which we gladly occupied. We spent a few hours recouping ourselves mentally and preparing for a couple more hours of walking into the black of night.

The bar staff were surprised that we both managed to progressively chomp our way through four bowls of chips each but we were on a mission. A couple of pints of caffeinated beverages and we were ready to leave the comfort of the hotel and hit the desolate road.

Temple information board

Getting spooky in temple ruins at midnight

Along our way we saw signs to a Roman temple. It was a little way off the road and we were getting tired but exploring these things was the whole point of the trip. It got rather creepy as we followed a small footpath into the middle of a large field. We didn't know what to expect.

The tension rose as we saw the outlines of the ruins of a building in the distance. The loud, blustery wind and the clock striking midnight didn't help to detract from the sinister vibe of it all. Do we enter it? Is it disrespectful to the dead? Are we going to be attacked by zombie Roman spectres?

Of course we went in! It was an experience. There were even altar stones with modern-day fiat currency donations littered around it. My accomplice did some Googling about the Roman temple practices and discovered some rather gruesome rituals that took place. I begged him not to describe them until we were back on the road but he couldn't resist. The details were vague but involved people being blind-folded and pretending to be killed - or maybe it wasn't pretending. Our pace hastened.

We eventually left the road and veered right into fields following the original ditches. The wind was an intense headwind at this point and was carrying quite a lot of moisture. We got quite wet. The amount of suitable wild camping locations was non-existent. The only shelter there was was the modern drystone wall. Unfortunately, it was lying parallel to the direction the wind was assaulting us from.

We trudged on as the GPS ticked over 20 miles. We now had two huge days in a row. How were we going to fare on the third? Let's find somewhere to sleep first.

A gate appeared in front of us and it was accompanied by a perpendicular wall. It wasn't great but this would be the spot. Shielding ourselves from the wind was paramount. We rolled out the bivy bags, tucked our backpacks under their waterproof covers (outside of my sleeping gear this time!) and hoped we weren't going to be awakened by sheep or an angry farmer.

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