Walking through a cow maze
Christian on the wall
Today seemed like a hard day. We didn't sleep well. Our room was pretty awful. Uncomfortable mattress, no bathroom, (we shared one down the hall) a broken light over the mirror, and right above the pub. Luckily, the pubs clear out pretty suddenly here at 11:00 on weeknights, so things got quiet then. Nathan got the room we should have had- quiet end room far away from the pub, private bathroom, away from the road...but frankly, we were so weary from our walk and the hotel guy spoke so quickly and with such an accent, we blindly followed him and put our bags in the first room he showed us. We did manage to hand wash a bunch of very smelly walking clothes and there was a boot room across the hall to dry them in. There's slim pickings out here in the hinterlands, so I guess we were lucky to have a bed, brews and some supper.
Our walk started out with a long slog up, up and up, from the valley where Twice Brewed was located back onto the windy craggy heights. I liked the heights again today, (we reached the highest point on the trail) still breathtaking, although not quite as spectacular as day 3. And the sheep! Such variety in types I never knew there were. They were a noisy bunch again today. They scattered as we walked along the trail, both sheep and cows alike. One becomes agile in the dance and weave to miss stepping in the copious amount of dung out here. The morning consisted of more ups and downs, and many steep downs where I was thankful that it was dry. To lose one's footing in some of those places would be disastrous, and I find the older I get, the more fear I feel, so was very careful picking my steps. We met up with Nathan at a little park where there was a rest room and picnic tables. 3 friendly ducks followed us over to our picnic table and were begging like dogs, so I held out a little crust of bread. To my delight and surprise, the ducks ate right out of my fingers! Then a little bird landed on our picnic table, so I crunched up some crisps (Brit for potato chips) and the bird hopped right by me, getting crisp crumbs all over his beak. Nate said the bird needed a napkin. I was in wild bird heaven. I guess it was tame bird heaven.
After lunch we walked along the wall, although some of it was buried. The only reason we knew the wall was there, was because the ditch that the Romans dug on the North side of the wall was visible. We checked out the ruins of Thirwall Castle. We kept on walking through cow and sheep pastures in country that reminded me very much of areas they used in the making of "All Creatures Great and Small." Remember that wonderful PBS program that was on 20 or 30 years ago? Well we were walking along windswept fields, narrow lanes and old stone farm houses so far apart you could scarcely see the next one. It started to look threatening, so I put on my rain coat on in time for a real soaker of a storm. My pants and boots were soaked but my top was dry as we trudged on through the driving rain and chilly wind. We were almost at the pick-up town when the rain stopped, and the sun came out. My wool socks were squishy. Eww.
Bill from Sands House B and B came along in his little white Van and picked us up in Lanercot, a town where there is an ancient church and priory. King Edward I is said to have spent 8 months there recuperating from dysentery. His troops boldly stole from Hadrian's Wall to build the church and priory and surrounding buildings.
Sands House was nicer than Twice Brewed. Nice deep tub for soaking in, and a short walk to a quaint little town of about 5,000 called Brampton. After dinner, we hobbled back to our rooms and crashed. I slept as if dead.
Pedometer Reading for Wednesday: 36,923 steps.
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