Ah England, though hast not failed thee for the heavens have opened and we are cooled. And Kenneth, my betrothed. Doth be vindicated for all the rain gear he doth brought. Me not so much.

Josh has joined us.

One of the exciting stops along the way on our second day was a small eight year old girl was doing the Hadrian’s Wall kicking a soccer ball as a fundraiser. They were celebrations along the way and kids had joined her for parts of the adventure. It was all great fun, and she certainly looked like an avid soccer player.

The bar we stopped at for this titbit of information was the Stagshead, which had thankfully opened an hour early for the event

I was talking about the differences and similarities between Hadrian’s Wall and the Camino. One major difference is that the Hadrian’s Wall as a Path has only been an entity since 2003. It is a path that follows along the Hadrian’s Wall much of which is impossible to actually see. The Camino is a Path that has been walked on for hundreds of years. I guess a Path stays where it is as long as you’re still going between the places however, a wall stops being useful once you stop wanting to keep somebody out. For some crazy reason I just remembered that I actually have a song recorded about just this issue.

So one main difference is that there’s very little build up along the path. We go by a small hamlet every 2 miles or so but each of these is really only 20 or 30 lovely brick houses and no businesses to speak of.

It is for this reason that the trip was very difficult to book. The wall itself is not on most, maps, and on the apps that show the wall they often don’t show the towns around it. most people , it seems, tend to book accommodation through a company. The company charges about 900 pounds a person and takes care of your lodging and moves your luggage from place to place. For whatever reason, I decided that seemed like a lot for three of us so I decided to do the booking myself.

It was essentially sitting for a full day with multiple Maps calculating how far we would go in a day and then trying to find a place for us to stay at around that spot.

And then many of the smaller places get booked up early, and some close early i.e. the beginning of September. They don’t encourage you to walk the Hadrian’s Wall past the end of October because it’s too wet and hard on the trail.

Our other big issue is that we purchased Sim cards from England that we set up once we arrived in England. We were told that we could keep our same phone numbers, but that was not the case. This didn’t seem to be too much of a big issue until we realize that anytime you access the bank and they need to verify things they send you a text your phone number, so anything to do with our bank that we want to purchase, Unfortunately we cannot put through

The other issue is that an Airbnb that we stayed at wanted to verify if we were coming for supper because they are quite isolated. I did not get the email and they did try to phone me but of course the phone number was not working.

So we did 12 miles yesterday and towards the end of the day it started pouring apparently it rained 27 mm yesterday so we were quite soaked when we arrived at the Airbnb and the people were a little ticked off at me because I hadn’t gotten back to them. A little much after 12 miles and being soaking wet but obviously that was my issue and it was resolved. We had a lovely evening at Flossie’s on the wall.

Another major difference between the Camino and the Hadrian’s Wall path is that for the Hadrian’s Wall people tend to go either east west or west to east and so we often have people come in the other direction we are going west to east

We are starting to see bits of the wall today. There are Rock walls everywhere in England and so we have had a tendency to say I wonder if that’s the wall? …or could that be the wall?” But given that it is on average 10 to 12 feet high and. 15 feet wide it is more of a concept than an actual structure for the most part it seems. At least for us now.

As far as how the wall has disappeared over the years, I’m sure a lot of it is erosion and the buildup of soil, but a lot of the structures in this area are built from the rocks from the wall because they have all been taken for miles around to build a wall so churches and walls that are currently here came from “ the wall”. Recycling at its finest.

It’s like we’re walking along a high mound and trying to imagine that below us there is 10 feet of wall that is 15 feet wide

Well, for today, we are going from Walton to Haltwhistle. Starting uphill now, so will close for now. I apologize for any grammar mistakes as I have dictated this while walking along much love to all.