We woke up at 8am – very late for us. It had been a very quiet night so nothing disturbed us. 

We went down to Talkin Tarn to check it out and have our van breakfast there. It is a lovely lake with lots of activities there. We checked out the wildlife art in the boat shed.

We then moved on to our first stop on Hadrians wall parking at Steel Rig. This is a good place to start a walk to see one of the most complete parts of the wall to Sycamore Gap where the tree was chopped down recently and the perpetrators went to jail.

It was very up and down with steep climbs and descents. 

The wall was originally 4.5 to 6 metres tall. It’s now about 2 metres in the highest spots. It’s amazing to think it’s 2000 years old.

We came to Sycamore Gap where the tree was chopped down last year. Saplings are growing from the stump. We found out from a girl who has done the walk 2 times and is doing it a third that other saplings have been shared around the country and growing in public parks.

One of the men who chopped it down is a nearby landowner and it’s not clear why he did it – maybe as a protest against something. They both ended up in jail.

We were able to get back to the car using the low road that didn’t do the huge up and downs – it was great!

We then drove the short distance to Housesteads Roman Fort.

It’s the most complete fort on the wall. After lunch we walked up the steep hill to the fort and started in the museum. The fort had been staffed by Belgian and Frisian (Dutch) auxiliaries. The Frisians had been losing their land to the sea so were happy to get a job and new location with the Roman army.

The museum had finds from everyday life including tents, hobnail boots, pottery and jewellery from the houses outside the fort in the vicus.

Every fort in the Roman Empire was constructed in the same way to make it easy for builders and also for the soldiers. There were barracks for the soldiers, a commandants house, a headquarters building and hospital. There was also a bathhouse, public latrines and 2 bake houses on either side of the fort right on the edge. 

This aerial photo shows all the features around the fort.

We went up to the fort and saw all these things. The commandants house was very opulent with lots of hypocaust heating underneath. It would have been hard for Romans to live in a very cold exposed part of Britain when they are used to a Mediterranean lifestyle.

The front part of the fort was part of Hadrians wall. 

We saw lots of water channels built into the ground. We saw a lead water pipe at one spot. It was great sunny weather and about 22 degrees to see all this. 

We had an icecream at the museum as we were now pretty hot after all our walking.

We then got back to the van and drove about 35 miles south through the dramatic north Pennines for a pub stay at Langdon Beck Hotel.

After a quick shower and change of attire we went up to the hotel for dinner. We had a nice drink outside.

We got chatting to others there. One couple is walking the Pennine Way. Another is doing the ‘Nobbles’ hills around – and seem to have done every mountain or hill in the country.

We had an excellent huge dinner of lamb shanks with new potatoes and peas. Even though we were really hungry beforehand,  we were stuffed after that. 

There are so many sheep around we thought lamb would be the best choice. 

There were lots of pictures of black grouse in the bar so Glenn went for a little walk to see if he could find them. I went back to the van to rest! Glenn came back after 30 minutes with no success. 

We went to bed exhausted but happy.