[I should begin with a little clarification from last week’s post. I’m not actually writing this all in real time, this trip took place in May of 2026 and we’re posting these in September. I took some notes while I was traveling and I didn’t file the serial numbers off (so to speak), but Lisa rightly pointed out that I should edit the text to make that clear. “Nah, why bother?” thought I… several well-wishing comments later (“Good luck!”, “stay safe!” etc…) just shows that my bride is a clever clever girl. Long story short: this trip is over, done, finito. So even though I’m writing in the first person, this took place months ago.]

Alright, so I have trained myself quite a bit, considering I’m a slightly dumpy 50+ year old. Not not selling myself short; there was real effort involved. I have geared myself for every possible weather condition because May in Northern England, it’s just prudent. They get sleet, they get heat, and everything in between. Fun! What I did not do is plan the whole thing myself. Oh no, I contracted with Contours Walking Holidays, a one-stop outfit that maps out your route based on how many days you want to spend on the trail and makes all the arrangements for lodging and transfers for your luggage. All that was left for me to do was the actual walking, and so… I began!

Specifically, I began at Newcastle upon Tyne; even more specifically I started off at a bed and breakfast just off of Long Sands Beach, literally on the east coast of England. Contours takes you seriously if you say you want to walk the whole of the Wall. in point of fact there was actually a section of Wall on either side that went along the coast to protect from naval incursions, but eventually even the Romans decided that was going too far, and so have I. The “main” Wall is more than enough. Me being me, I almost immediately deviated from the proscribed path I was given.

See, the thing about the historical true path of Hadrian’s Wall is that almost 2000 years have past since it was built. Anywhere along the path that humans would have found attractive to settle in, they did. Not only did they settle, they availed themselves of all the lovely, quarried, and pre-cut stones and bricks that the Romans left behind. Point being, there’s no wall to see in Newcastle. My official trail was going to have me traipsing through middle class neighborhoods and high streets to my first destination, and I figured the whole point of this walk was to take in the scenery, so I hugged the coastline to the mouth of the River Tyne and then turned inland. It was still plenty residential and light industrial but at least there was a water view on one side and several parks along the way. Don’t let this sound too adventurous, it only added +/- two hours to the day, which was slated to go 4 or so.

The first official stop along the way is Segedunum Roman Fort, in a place literally called “Wallsend”; that’s even the name on the light rail stop (ahem). There is a UNESCO Heritage site there, with a little museum and a large tract of land with the buildings of the former fort marked out and signed with nice explanations of what was there. I’m a little unclear but I think there’s actual ruins of those buildings under the ground that they’re leaving buried for preservation; in any case, there’s no actual Wall bits to see here. Still, it’s the official beginning of the National Trail so I stopped in, snapped a photo, and bought my souvenir passport. This is a program where you stop at 7 points along the Wall and get your booklet stamped, and if you get all 7 you can turn it in for a commemorative pin thingy. Why am I not showing you the pin or the passport… “Spoilers,” as the Doctor would say.

A word about the pace I took: Contours offered some basic guidelines for beginning, intermediate, expert, and hardcore hikers (or words to that effect). As a complete noob, I chose a beginners pace… actually, I lie. I chose an intermediate pace, but my darling bride pointed out that I was letting my ego get the best of me, and wasn’t it true that I’d never done this before and if I blew out an ankle or something the trip would be a wash? My bride is wise, and I took the beginners pace. That meant that I was going to walk for approximately 15 days. I met people that did it in 3-4; good for them. Anyways, the thing about this pace is that, at the end of the first day, I was literally in the middle of downtown Newcastle. Hardly dripping with ancient history. I had dinner at a Taco Bell for pete’s sake. This would change for the better in short order, but still.

At the beginning of day 2, I realized that I hadn’t actually stamped my souvenir passport, which meant I wouldn’t get my fancy pin at the end. So, I went to the nearest light rail station, rode back to Wallsend, got my passport stamped, and rode back to the station I started at. Yes, I was there to walk, and I can put my hand on any holy object you’d like and swear that I didn’t short cut any of the route. But, I also wasn’t going to add a whole half-day of walking for a clerical error. I got off the train, walked back to the spot on the trail where I left off, and continued on. This day’s walking still only got me to the suburbs/bedroom communities of Newcastle. I started on the river walk, finally crossed a highway on to a trail that looked a lot like the Green River trail (for all my Seattle friends), and ended by crossing back across the river and through an industrial park to reach my inn. This day’s detour for lodging was easily the longest of the trip as far as walking was concerned; Contours actually arranged for taxis/shuttles to take you to your lodging and back to your end-of-day point if they place they arranged for you was too far from the trail. I don’t now what the criteria were for considering a place “too far”, but I have some disagreement on that point.

The village I was staying in, Newburn, was apparently famous for a song that involves a car race in the early 20th century. They are so famous, they seem to believe, that the numerous signs I saw – including a true monument, in brick, with a plaque and everything – never actually explained what they were talking about. I had to look up the song and the story behind it. The Blaydon Races, it turns out, were horse races that were revived in (wait for it) Blaydon, England in the 1860s after a couple decades lapse due to *checks notes* a train track interrupting the original course. Apparently it was a point A-to-B affair, not a gallop around the track. In any case, in 1862 the song “Blaydon Races” was conceived and performed, and it has risen to the level of local anthem: they sing it at rugby, football, and even cricket matches for the local squads. (You can spend about four minutes listening to it, here, if you’d like to scratch an itch.) That constitutes the rowdiest cricket fans I’ve ever heard of, although now that I think about it there have probably been some tense India-Pakistan matches. But I digress… (once again, the spiritual subtitle of this blog.)

So, two days down, and the closest I’ve got to the wall so far was the gift shop at Wallsend. I have to admit, even having seen a map of my trail it wasn’t what I had envisioned when I conceived of this plan. Still, nothing for it but to press on. I took a bus into the village, threw a dart at a local Italian restaurant that turned to be really good, and then settled back in at the B&B for a good night’s sleep.

In a few days (as of this writing) I’ll be leaving my lovely home in Portugal and making my way to the wilds of northern England, not-so-coincidentally along the border of Scotland, to begin a two-week walk along Hadrian’s Wall. I’ll be starting in Newcastle upon Tyne, hugging the eastern coast of England along the North Sea. I basically put my feet in the sand, turn west, and start walking. Thing is, I’ve never done anything like this in my life. I don’t do religious pilgrimages, I don’t even participate in charity 5k run/walks. This in no way fits the “John” profile. So just what the #*@(! am I doing?

Good question.

I don’t know when I first heard of it, but I know I first saw Hadrian’s Wall in early May of 2012. It was a sight-seeing stop in the early days of our honeymoon – we were married about a week at the time – and I just loved everything about it. We went to Houseteads, which is probably the best-preserved bit of the entire Wall at this point, and really enjoyed poking around for awhile. And while we were poking around, we noticed that people were approaching the fort from a direction other than that parking area. In fact, they were coming out of what we thought was the wilderness on the other side of the fort! And this is when we heard about the Hadrian’s Wall Path for the first time.

What that is, is a “National Trail” maintained by Great Britain, one of many such trails maintained by the State for the benefit of everyone. I didn’t know much about it at the time beyond the fact of its existence, but something about the hills and the ambiance and… just the romance of the honeymoon maybe?… anyway I said, out loud to my blushing bride, “I’m going to come back here and walk this when I’m 50.”

WHAT??

See, I turned 40 a little more than a week after the wedding. In other words, I would be turning 40 the day after this visit, and I think the whole sense of time passing, life changing etc… just stirred something in me. At the time, it just made sense; set a goal for my 50th year that would require me to maintain some amount of fitness and discipline, plus it would be an adventure worth an iconic anniversary. That being said, the romance of the notion papered over ideas like “I’ve never been particularly fit,” “I’ve never done the least bit of hiking”, and “I have no clue what this would actually encompass.” “I’ve never even walked a 5k.” PHAW, those would be problems for another day. Besides, anybody who knows me knows that I say stupid/whimsical shit all the time! This was no big deal.

The weird thing was, though, that this stuck. Year after year went by, and I would still occasionally think “I’ll be getting ready for the walk in few years.” “I should probably start losing weight if I’m going to make it across England.” That sort of thing. The montage of calendar pages flew past, and I never quite dropped the idea of it. That said, in my 49th year we decided to up and move to Portugal, so spending any energy on the idea of another big project was just ridiculous. There was also this big trip we planned for shortly after we arrived in Portugal as sort of a reward/incentive to ourselves for COVID got in the way of doing this in my actual 50th year, and there was a false start the year after that, but schedules conspired this year so that Lisa and I would be separated at the end of May anyway, so it seemed like the opportunity to do something on my own had presented itself.

And so, a few months ago, I set my pedometer thingy to 10,000 steps. Then, a week later, I set it to 11,000. And every week after that if I succeeded in hitting the goal at least 5 out of 7 days, I added another thousand. Just before we left for Marrakech my benchmark was 24,000 steps a day, which – according to a combination of napkin-backs and the internet – seems to be the median distance I’ll be walking on my chosen route. I’ve done a reasonable amount of research on how to be prepared and have equipped myself appropriately. In a bittersweet turn, my recently deceased father-in-law gifted me a nice set of walking poles many years back when he heard about my hiking goal; an incredibly thoughtful gift, showing that he was paying attention when we spoke. I’ve used them a little on my practice walks and I expect to get good use out of them very soon.

As I finish writing this blog post I am on a train taking me from Leeds (where my flight from Porto landed) to Newcastle, where the beginning of the Hadrian’s Wall path is. Tomorrow morning I’m setting off, to discover if hiking is my new passion or, just possibly, I hate it. Fingers crossed!