The end

The people in the pub at Bowness-on-Solway were really nice to us. They even gave us a ride to Carlisle.

From Carlisle we took a train to Kendale, a nice small town in the lake district. We're continuing to Liverpool tomorrow, and from there we are going home.

We think themed walks like the one we've just done will be the future in tourism. A lot of people say they like travelling, but what they often do is to fly to some place and stay there for a while, before they go back. In my opinion that is not traveling. It is transporting. To travel properly, you have to have the time to appreciate the surroundings you travel through, leaving motorized transportation out of the question. Furthermore, arriving somewhere when you have used your own power, makes you appreciate the place more.

Well, that was todays philosophical speech. Unfortunately we do not have the time to travel back home, we'll have to be transported.

Thanks for reading this blog!

The end of Hadrians wall

Distance walked:23.25 km
Time used:5 h 41 min
Weather:sunny
Breakfast:ok
Lunch:no
Dinner:to be eaten

Total distance:142 km
Total time used:37 h 25 m 9 s

We could feel the strain on our legs today. Also, we had to walk a long straight part on asphalt. Some times it made me think about my military service. Don't get me wrong, I actually had a good time when doing the service, but sometimes you really just thought about finishing of things, when you started to get tired.

For some reason all the pubs on the way were closed today too (they were closed yesterday as well), so we did not get any lunch. Then, in Bowness-on-Solway, the pub was closed too, and the bus back did not leave before in 4 hours! Complete despair! Luckily the pub owner invited us in anyhow, and served us a pint of the local brew. English hospitality still stand strong it seems. We've decided to stay the night, as they have rooms in the second floor, and they serve food later on.

Davinder does merit some credit for having walked this far with his bad knee. If he couldn't have done it, it would have meant yet another failure for the english. First Scott and then Gill... Not so this time though. Well done.

Carlisle

Distance walked:31 km
Time used:8 hours
Breakfast:good
Lunch:no
Dinner:to be eaten
Weather:warm
Mud:in abundance

Easy walk today, from Gilsland to Carlisle. Since my two friends surname is Gill, they were very happy when they realised we were walking through their "land". Had they finally found where their ancestors came from?

Close to Carlisle, we met two walkers, a couple, doing the wall in the other direction. Whereas I was walking together with two mid aged men, he was walking with a beautiful woman. What had I done wrong?

Oops, I nearly forgot to mention Davinders knee. He managed to do 31 km today, which is not bad. He wants us to call him a hero, but normally we associate heroes with saving peoples life, rescuing babies out of fires etc., not only transporting ones own body mass from A to B, although in Davinders case it could be considered as one of the worlds seven miracles.

Soon going to the guest house we have found, just doing the after walk first. Tomorrow we will do the after "wall" in Bowness on Solway.

Scott - again

Today has been yet another day were we have been reminded of Scott and his men. Scott did manage to get to the south pole, but it was on his way back the problems started. After they had collected 17 kg of stone samples in the mountainside of a mountain lying far of their originally planned track, one of his men started to get problems. Just small problems like loosing his fingernails and so on, due to the cold, but the result was anyhow that he started delaying the party. I guess many of us would have started thinking about leaving some of the stones behind at this point. Not so with Scott. Rather, he considered it quite obvious that any man delaying the party should behave as a man. And, so Scotts man did. The poor delaying man, one evening in the tent, told the others:"I am going out, I might be a while." And never came back.

Now you might wonder what our analogy is. Well, as the observant reader might remember, Davinders knee is starting to fall apart. As a consequence, he is delaying the party. Now, even though I have told him the story about Scott up to several times, he still seem to expect us to wait for him. So, today we did not get very far. A lady in a B&B that was normally closed for the season, kindly let us in when she heard about Davinders knee. It turned out to be a very nice place. Another lady we met provided Davinder with special anti inflammatory medicin. So, hopefully his knee will get better through a combination of the two ladies services.

Yesterday, the new years party was quite nice. I asked for an explanation of the name of the pub "Twice brewed". The waitress didn't seem very impressed by my question. I was actually just told to go to the entrance, where she said an explanation could be found. The explanation started by saying that the question I had just asked was the most asked question in the pub, i.e. the most boring question that was being asked. All in all I got the impression that they where just politely giving an answer to the question, but they were really tired of people asking the same question over and over again, and were considering changing the name because of it. To make a short story even shorter, the word "brew" can also mean "hill". So, the name of the pub, "Twice brewed" indicates the pub is lying between two hills. They didn't say anything about the pub "Once brewed", but I guess it must by lying in or on a hill somewhere. Finally, they finished by saying that if anybody had a better explanation, indicating that the people asking for the explanation of the pub name were normally pedantic and quarrelsome, they could send it to some obscure email address.

Ironically, the name of the B&B where we are staying now is called "Hill on the wall", but I will keep my mouth shut and not suggest they change their name to "Brewed on the wall." or anything along that line.

Facts:
breakfast:excellent
lunch:average
weather:in our favour
distance walked:14 km
time used:4h 30m