Day 13 Greenhead to Bellingham. Just when I thought I had seen the boggiest bog…

I was warned that today would be boggy but I thought that it couldn’t be any worse than that I had already experienced. I was wrong. Today I got wet feet for the first time since leaving Edale. I am beginning to ponder that when this route was put together in the 1960s footpaths needed to be created to connect up all the existing paths to create a whole; they put in new paths where there would be least objection and on those bits of land that were no good for anything else; bogs. 

Today I walked alongside Hadrian’s Wall for 8 miles and then into Wark Forest, the southern part of Kielder Forest.

We had heavy rain overnight and although the forecast was good I left Catherine and Gloria in the car park in Greenhead in fine drizzle and very overcast skies. I have to confess at this point that logistics dictated that I miss out about 3 miles of the PW. This was due the location of the campsite and my having to divert (about 3 miles) off route yesterday. To have re-traced my steps and picked up where I left off would have added 6 miles to today’s already long stage and made for an impossibly long day today.  I am confident that all I missed out on was another stretch of bog and distance wise we are quits.

The Wall was spectacular from the start, with the best preserved or restored sections in this area.

Hadrians Wall. Originally it was 73 miles long across the breadth of England

Hadrian's Wall. It contiues along the ridge line of the Whin Sill on the horizon.

The dressed stone face of the Wall

The wall took eight years to build, by the Roman soldiers garrisoned in the area, starting in AD122 supervised by Emperor Hadrian.  You can see the construction in the pictures below; with a rough stone core and dressed stone outer faces all held together with mortar. At 15 feet tall in its day it was a formidable barrier but the Romans also chose its location wisely as it is built on top of the Whin Sill escarpment giving a natural barrier to it before the wall is reached. I have encountered the Whin Sill before; it was that which created the waterfalls in Teesdale. Over the two thousand years or so of the wall’s existence inevitably the locals have plundered its stone and the houses and dry stone walls around here all have very regular dressed stones within their structures. 

I had been warned that this section of the walk would be busy with people “walking the wall”. Probably due to the weather I saw no-one for at least a couple of miles but then the crowds started to appear. I heard Americans, Canadians, Brummies and Geordies. How do I know the difference between Americans and Canadians; because they both took no encouragement to announce the fact to anyone within hailing distance. The American couple were struggling with the downhill sections, or at least he was, proclaiming that the stones here were too small for his large feet; I guess they have bigger stones in America.

I had some sympathy with the American despite my ridicule. The Wall section was tough walking as it followed the Whin Sill line faultlessly which meant that it went up and down like a rollercoaster adding to my daily ascent and descent figures making this one of the hardest days on the PW. When I left the Wall and headed north, towards the forest, I was glad to see the back of it.

 

Entering Wark Forest. Wainwright said at this point, to gaurd against fire in the forest "extinguish your cigars".

I was looking forward to walking in the forest, a change from endless expanses of Grouse moors.  Wainwright hated the forests. He had this to say about them. “Forest walking is the antithesis of fell walking, for in the one there is a severe confinement, a rigid line of march, a lack of living creatures, absence of birdsong, inability to see ahead or look around; but in the other is freedom, freedom to roam and explore, to look into far distances, to select a line of march and vary it at will, and there is the friendly companionship of the animals and birds of the open spaces.” I disagree, whilst this is a manmade forest and so the trees are very densely planted, there is life, I saw evidence of Pine Marten (poo), I heard birds of prey above, there were thousands of little fungi growing on the forest floor and it was peaceful.

I wasn’t prepared for two things in the forest. Firstly the drop in temperature almost as soon as I entered; there was a mist clinging to the ground and I could feel the air temperature plummet to the extent that I could see my breath as I exhaled; it must have dropped the best part of 10c. Secondly, I was not at all prepared for a forest that was planted on a bog! Bogs, bogs and more bogs. I can’t remember which day I called the boggiest bog so far but this beat it hands down.  This was a swamp, Mangrove trees would not have been out of place never mind the Sitca Spruce. I got wet feet, not because the leather of my boots failed but because the water was more than ankle deep and there was no avoiding it.  At one point I was directed by a sign to a view point and as it was only 100metres away I took the detour. It was a view, very proudly proclaimed with its own information board, of a bog. Like I really wanted to see another bog!

Footpath through the forest. Will this be the boggiest bog of them all?

On the whole, despite the boggiest bog so far revisited, I enjoyed todays walk because of its variety and its historical interest.

 

Catherine had more of a cultural day, cycling in rain and a head wind aside, she visited the museum at the Roman Fort at Housesteads or Vercovicium the best preserved Roman Army barracks on the Wall.  There she saw fine examples of Roman latrines, the finest in the whole of somewhere. No coffee and cake though, it seems the Hadrian’s Wall experience does not encourage that sort of thing – consequently, when I arrived back at camp after my 22 mile slog Catherine was quite grumpy!

Tomorrow (today, as I write this) is a rest day. Chance to dry and reproof my boots before the final three stages.

Grassland (aka more bog) between the forests

I have seen a few of these along the Way. Enterprising farmers providing a service. This one was a bit close to camp to take advantage of.

Guidebook said: 22 miles

Garmin said: 22 miles (there's a first); 6.1mph max; 3.1mph moving average; 2.6mph overall average (not bad on a long day); 8 hours 34 minutes with 1 hour 33 of stoppages.

AW