Hadrian's Wall Path - Day 1 - 17 miles
Hey all! We have some exciting posts coming up! First off, we have a photo packed installment of Hadrian's Wall posts coming up. Justin documented our day by day trekking through the countryside in the United Kingdom for six days. A short little jaunt compared to last summer's much more intense trail. We've also decided that next summer we'll be traveling to the English/Welsh border to traverse the Offa's Dyke trail at 177 miles!
Secondly, The Goodish Traveler will be hosting a guest post soon! More details to come! We're very excited to be having another traveler share their viewpoints and advice.
Below starts Justin's documentation of our time in the U.K. His first and my second time visiting and we both fell in love with the countryside, the people, the food (curry chips!) and everything in between.
Our first day on the trail. Our destination, Bowness on Solway, was 84 miles away! Seems not so far when you're in a car but definitely something else when you're walking!
Excellent first day on the trail! We took the metro from Newcastle to Wallsend to start our walk.
Admiring the castles in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Most of today was semi urban with only the tail end starting to get into countryside. But man, if the last 2 miles are what we have to expect for the rest of this, I'm pretty pumped.
Happiest when I don't know what time or day it is. Looking up at the amazing Edinburgh Castle in weird and quirky Edinburgh, Scotland.
Excited to be hiking again! Here I am holding my Path Passport. Some trails will have something like this where you can stamp them along the way. Some, like the Camino, do it so that you can be let into the hostels/have evidence of your travels and some do it so you can get a certificate of completion. Some people think the certs are silly but I love them!
English countrysides are pretty stunning, rolling hills covered in wheat, barley, and tall grass, broken into neat plots by hundreds of years old low stone walls, punctuated by quaint, essentially British farmhouses.
Hiking on pavement can be very tough on your feet but when you have beautiful views like this, you tend to forget about it.
Walking into Heddon-on-the-Wall, a small but pretty farm village and our home for the evening, took me back to the Camino, the familiarity of sore feet and a feeling of accomplishment the perfect dichotomy to an excellent trail day.
The view from Heddon on the Wall. We were sitting here eating our meal of roast turkey dinner and a meat pie. Also beers. And bread. And calamari. Hiking makes you HUNGRY.
There's a peaceful feeling to carrying everything you need on your back. It's good to be trekking again.
The view on our walk back to Houghton North Farms. It was actually about 10:30pm here. The sun barely went down while in the UK.
Keep an eye out for Day 2 in the UK!
-Tiffany and Justin
