Bardon Mill

Today was fabulous! We had anticipated difficult climbs and a long distance, and although this was true, it all worked out amazingly. We started with the first steep climb that Amr and I had looked at, and it was manageable - you needed to take great care on the stone steps, a mistake and you could break your leg, but somehow it was not bad - maybe because we went slowly and carefully - but whatever, it was ok, and the rewards were magnificent views as we walked along the ridge. This continued, as we knew it would, after a level ridge walk down we went again, and up the other side - no zig zag to get up and down. This continued many times. One of the most spectacular downs was to Sycamore Gap which is famous for being the spot where they filmed the Robin Hood movie Prince of Thieves. We all had photos there, and another group of people took all four of us, and we took their group etc. there were quite a lot of walkers out today, and we realised that it is Saturday and people are out for weekend walks. Lots of locals, not just people like us.

Another feature of today’s walking was MUD....lots of it. This is not a complaint, as we had no rain!! Occasionally there were droplets of most, but I never needed to put on my poncho, and it was beautiful and even sunny sometimes. The mud situation was bad, but then got funny once we had to get through an unavoidable bog and all had to go deeper than our shoes - even Amr in his quite high boots got waterlogged. So for the rest of the day we walked with wet feet and socks squelching along, and it still was good. Our shoes were so muddy that when we arrived here at our accommodation the first thing we did was to get a hose to clean all the mud off before it dried on.

But it was fantastic with views of this gorgeous countryside, walking amongst the cows and sheep who all mix together in the fields, and today we were well marked with acorns and signs - we are getting expert at spotting the little white dots of the acorn sign in the distance at a stile or gate.

So after the many ups and downs we finally walked smoothly, that is on the level, along the Wall and finally came to our end point of walking which was the Chesters Roman Fort. It was a marathon 22.3 kms, which doesn’t sound all that far by Camino distances, but this was tough walking. Carole and John were Trojans as we knew this was very arduous for them, and we all made it with gusto.

We had to telephone when we got to the Fort and were picked up by our host, Dave, who is at present salmon fishing in the North Tyne river, but his wife, daughter and granddaughter are here looking after us and we have just had dinner and are retiring to our rooms. When we first arrived, after we had cleaned the shoes and left them to dry, there was the cleaning of ourselves and particularly our socks which took many rinses to clean! But after dinner, wine and showers we are very content.

I will put on photos of today, but there is no way photos can capture the perspective of the steepness, or the whole picture. But I will try.Read more