Day 3, Chollerford –Gilsland

Starting an early morning, to give us the best chance of finishing our longest day of the walk , with a full English was just the thing. We departed around 7am from Chesters Walled Garden after collecting another stamp on our passport cards. It was certainly a day of ups and downs, and more ups and downs, literally. The wall carries on for what feels like forever in huge peaks and troughs, leading the way on to Bowness on Solway. At least now we are seeing the wall, up until this morning we hadn’t set eyes on anymore than about a 20 meter stretch! We had begun to wonder if we had come to the wrong place!!

You may notice at this point that the Romans are missing a pretty vital piece of their attire from our pictures of the day. Unfortunately this was down to a wardrobe malfunction, no not the same as Janet Jackson suffers from, but after 2 days of heavy use the hinges and bolts holding it all together had been put under severe stress. So much so that we needed urgent repairs to be carried out to enable it all to be usable for the next couple of days. Fortunately for us we have our resident driver, and all around armourer, Andrew on stand by (can he fix it? YES HE CAN!!) so we left the heavy stuff with him for the day and tasked him with getting it up and running for us for tomorrow, and boy are we glad we did!

The heat was already beating down and it was only 9 o’clock! Oh my god, we are going to roast today. Good job legionnaire Townend brought, along a supply of suncream, factor 30! We were soon smothered and set off. All up hill from Chesters and it was hard going to Tower Tye, here the levels slightly evened out and we came across a Mithras temple, very nice! Following the path we came across a couple of ladies, who appeared to be on their way to a shopping trip rather than an 84 mile walk judging by the next carrier bag one of the had in hand. They did though swear that they too had a driver that had gone ahead with the rest of their baggage. 10 mins later, we found Margaret and Charlie, who wanted to eat Robs fingers (Charlie the dog, not Margaret!). Margaret very kindly donated £20 to our cause, which is fantastic.

Legionnaire Taylor by this time had taken to Arabian techniques of taking the heat away, not having some linen to hand, a crafty t-shirt did just the job! The heat was very punishable, it was as promised, the hottest day of the week so far, though a nice breeze did keep us cool. The scenary is pretty amazing from this point as the Romans built the wall on the highest point for several miles. We Continued along at a fast pace, until we came to the first major port of call, no not the toilets but Housesteads Fort. Very impressive place, and had a very handy shop! From there it was a short 3 mile walk until we met Andrew. The hills at this point of Hadrians Wall, are as everyone promise’s, none stop up and down. 22 miles of this doesn’t seem like fun anymore. After a short food break, we continue along the path towards Sycamore Gap, only a measly 3 miles away. The walk there, was interesting as far as looking at the wall goes... To be honest, once you’ve seen a bit, it all looks the same! Sycamore Gap incidentally was the setting for a scene in the Kevin Costner, Robin Hood:Prince of Thieves film, you may have seen it yourself, it’s the part when Robin returns home from the crusades. Oddly enough coming to shore on the white cliffs of Dover but then running up along Sycamore Gap along Hadrian’s wall. Now that’s a walk!! (Must have got lost along the way somewhere.)

Now a long stretch took us to Caw Fields quarry. The route to the quarry was filled with yet more ups and downs which after 15 miles of the same started to weigh very heavy on the legs and knees. This coupled with the on going heat, showing no signs of letting up, made it all the more uncomfortable.

On the home straight though now with every instinct telling us to quit we headed on toward Walltown Crags, home to the noisiest sheep in the world! Bahhhhh this and Bahhhhhh that, they were going mental! This seemingly having nothing to do with anything either. No sheep dog around to spook them, no farmer to symbolise the possibility of a feed on the offing, and, given they were generally looking the other way, it’s difficult to put their mood down to our presence either. They were just crazy, enough said.

With the end at Gilsland in sight we pushed on eager to find the finish line were a nice cold pint lie in wait. Stopping briefly to take a couple of pics of the ruins of Thirlwall Castle we made the approach over yet another damn hill and rested our feet in the near by Samson Inn pub. Mmmmmmm beer....