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

Twice brewed

Todays walk:21 km
Time used:6.5 hours
Blisters:none
Breakfast:excellent
Lunch:acceptable
Weather:english
Bad knees:1 (Davinder)

First about the bad knee. A combination of fatness and age caused Davinders knee to break down, according to him.

A lot of up and down today, but sadly we are still talking about walking. And the wall was visible next to large parts of the track. We ate our lunch inside an old roman milecastle. These small castles could be found every mile, and was were the locals were allowed through to sell their merchandises.

They say people have taken the stones from the wall to create houses and so on, but there were nearly no houses were we walked today, so it is a bit strange the wall has more or less disappeared. I had to find the reason. And it was not far away. Our guidebook tells us that some english general decided to build a road from Newcastle to Carlisle in 1754, and what was more natural than to build large parts of it on top of the wall. That explains why we've been walking so close to a road large parts this far...

We've checked into a B&B now, and will go to a pub called "Twice brewed" to celebrate new years eve. There is another pub not far called "Once brewed". The creativeness in this region, at least when it comes to naming pubs, doesn't seem to be impressive. Hopefully the creativeness when it comes to making the food will be better, although I will not be surprised if the menu says Dish one, Dish two, etc.

The mobile networks might be overloaded later on tonight, so we use this opportunity to wish all our readers a happy new year!

Chollerford

A short walk today, 16 km. The next part is the most beautiful on the trip, but it also means it is the longest one without accomodation possibilities. So we decided to stop early today, to have plenty of time for tomorrows part.

The weather was rough today. Our backpacks were covered with a layer of ice when we arrived at the Crown, the place we will stay tonight. Again excellent food, and plenty of it. Yesterdays dinner was excellent too by the way.

I am surprised by the food in this region, whereas norwegian food is described as "how to store it as long as possible and still be able to eat it.", english food is normally just described as "throw it all in a bucket and eat it." Not so here. Crisp fish and chips. Perfect roast chicken with stuffing, rich gravy, ten different kinds of vegetables etc. etc. Not to talk about hot chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice on its side. Prices for the meals vary from 2£ for a nice bowl of soup to 6£ for the above mentioned ones.

Scott

Before I went to England, I finished a book about the four polar explorers, Nansen, Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton. Today made me think about those expeditions. First of all, we are also on an expedition. Secondly, there is a lot of snow here. The weather conditions here could nearly be described as arctic. Thirdly:Scott tried to use horses and motorized vehicles to get to the pole, but always stated that the only real way was doing it on foot. Although we are not going to the pole, we are on foot.

As it has been really cold here today, at least for England (-2), all the gatelocks have frozen, and we've been forced to climb over them. Closer inspection showed that they were made by relatives of the people who constructed Scotts motorized vehicles.

We've taken in at a pub called Robin Hood. Looking forward to relax there the next hours and have a good nights sleep.

Facts:
Distance walked: 36 km
Time used: 9 hours
Blisters:1
Breakfast:horrible
Bacon sandwich:super
Lunch:excellent and cheap
Weather:blue sky and sun!
Dinner:to be announced

The happy chaps greats you!

First blister

25 km on the way, we have stopped in Heddon-on-the-wall, to have lunch. The walking today has been mostly along the river Tyne, passing several famous bridges. We stopped in a cafe under one of them this morning to have a bacon sandwich and a cafe au lait.

A layer of snow is covering England right now, and tomorrow more snow is to come. It makes a nice scenery.

Davinder has got a small blister, but nothing serious. We will walk 8 more kilometers before we settle in a B&B, which the owner of the pub where we are now, is kindly organising for us.

Hadrians lodge

Have met up with Davinder and Ravinder now! After a small dinner we've translocated to the bar where they are showing - you guessed it - an episode of 'Rome', a series about romans. Couldn't have been more appropriate as we're going to follow a roman wall for the next few days.

Landed

Snow on the runway here in England delayed our landing a bit.

I have landed in a city with metro stations named Wallsend and Hadrian Road. Chances should therefore be good for finding Hadrians wall itself.

The lady working in the metro information office first argued that the metro station Hadrian Road did not exist. That sounded strange to me, since my english friend, Davinder, had just short messaged me telling me that he had taken the metro there and that I could do the same thing. I told the lady the address of the hotel, which was Hadrian road. She said I should take the metro to Wallsend and gave me a map of the metro, circleing that station. Ironically, the next station after Wallsend was Hadrian Road, and of course I couldn't resist pointing that out. Next thing, the metro vending machine did not take bills, and the machine for exchanging bills to coins was out of order.

On the metro now. Time to start do some walking soon...

Departure

After I had packed my backpack this morning, I sat down to write a checklist of the things I needed to bring with me. My 3 1/2 year old nephew wondered what I was doing, and I asked him to help me. He quickly came up with soda, food and backpack, which I guess really sums up what you need when you go backpacking. When I asked him if I should bring anything else, he looked thoughtful for a moment, before he suggested the two following items:football-ball and football-goal.

Later, as my departure approached, my mother lifted the backpack, breaching out that it was heavy! My niece, 5 1/2 years old, who had also been participating in the checklist making, quickly suggested, that if the backpack was heavy, I could leave the football-goal out.

I am now in the Torp express bus, heading for the airport.

Posting from my mobile

This is a post from my mobile just to check that it works.

The beginning

My parents have just served a perfect breakfast in front of the fireplace in Haugsbygd. It should contain at least enough energy to get me to Torp, Sandefjord, where the plane for Newcastle will leave this afternoon.

The plan is to walk along Hadrians wall from Walls end in Newcastle to somewhere after Carlisle.

Have a look here to read more about the wall:http://www.hadrians-wall.org