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 THE BOLDON OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES CLUB
  Hadrian's Wall Path - 2006
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1 Wallsend to Newcastle 2 Newcastle to Heddon-on-the-Wall
3 Heddon-on-the-Wall to Chollerford 4 Chollerford to Housesteads
5 Housesteads to Greenhead 6 Greenhead to Banks
7 Banks to Crosby-on-Eden 8 Crosby-on-Eden to Burgh by Sands
9 Burgh by Sands to Bowness    

 

DAY 3 - HEDDON-0N-THE-WALL TO CHOLLERFORD - 03/05/06

 
Most of the group had walked the section from Heddon-on-the-Wall to the Robin Hood Inn a couple of weeks ago but Ken, Syd and John had missed that day's walking (yes is there is life outside of the club!) so they intended to incorporate these 5 miles in today's walk. Sue kindly gave them a lift to Heddon-on-the-Wall early in the morning in order that they would be able to walk to the Robin Hood Inn at East Wallhouses to meet the main group. Everything went according to plan, arriving at the inn 15 minutes before the main group arrived to park their cars. We were able to stamp our 'Roman Passports' before starting on the next section - 9 walkers.

John and Syd walking alongside rape fields - hayfever sufferer's nightmare - on way to Wallhouses.

We were lucky in that we were to have a beautiful sunny day with a few wispy white clouds and a light wind. Most of the walk would be close to the military road although usually in fields separated from the road by hedges. Despite the proximity of the traffic, quite noisy at times, the scenery was pleasant enough; an easy day's walking. There was very little to see of Roman remains although the shape of the Vallum could clearly be seen along much of the walk.

After Down Hill, the site of a Roman quarry, we had lunch in a pleasant area away from the road. Here there was much gorse in flower. The gorse had a very strong scent which I thought had a smell of pineapple and coconut but Norman thought was more like Thai curry - wishful thinking!

St. Oswald's Church

We stopped for coffee in the tea shop at Hill Head at the top of Brunton Bank. Someone at the café recommended that we make a slight detour to visit St Oswald's Church. This proved to be well worth the visit; an ancient church in a beautiful location on the crown of a field to the north of the site of the wall at Heavenfield. This was the site of an important battle which resulted in Oswald becoming crowned King of Northumbria about 635 AD.

Soon after visiting the church we were able to see our first section of Hadrian's Wall of the day's walking at Planetrees and later made a slight detour to Brunton Turret, another well preserved section of wall.

From here we continued into Chollerford where a taxi had been booked to take the drivers back to Wallhouses in order to pick up the cars. To fill in the time the rest of us had no choice except to go to The George for refreshments! We spent a very pleasant half hour on the patio outside the bar sipping cool beers and pondering whether any of the drivers had left their keys in their rucksacks.

 

Section of wall at Planetrees

Ray was deemed the most likely possibility but then Russell arrived with a distinctly sheepish look - need I say more! Russell reckoned he had broken an important rule - "a walker and his rucksack should not be parted".

We felt obliged to have a final drink at the Robin Hood (to repay them for letting us use their car park) only to find opening time wasn't for another half an hour. However the kindly landlady took pity on us and opened up early!