I ride the bus to Gilsland. I�m not at all sure where our night�s lodging, The Hill on the Wall B & B, is located. I ask a woman who acts more than a little bit tipsy. She seems to know the place and gives me excellent directions. She says it�s a short ways up the road so I know it�s at least a half-mile. Turns out it�s just about a mile. I get there before my friends, who again, make a wrong turn at the end of the formal hike and end up walking an extra half-mile or so to get to our place. I was sure they would report a tough day but they said that once the rain stopped, it was really quite a benign day.
The owner of the place, Dick Packer, is a nice enough chap but he�s bit uptight to be running a B & B. He reminds me of the radio operator from New Orleans in �Apocalypse, Now.� Martin Sheen describes him as being wound a little bit tight for Vietnam and then adds, �Hell, he may be wound a little too tight for New Orleans.� Packer has recently retired from working for a subsidiary of Union Carbide. The house itself was built in the 15th century and has foot thick walls. It�s an impressive structure but requires a lot of upkeep. I suspect the romance of running a B &B is more myth than reality. He more or less verifies my supposition.
We run into another small glitch. The bathrooms are described as en suite, which we take to mean in the room but not so. The bath is across the hall but we are the only ones who can use it. This still means we have to, at least, put on our pants to visit the bathroom, unless we want to risk terrifying the two women in the next room. I realize I can hear Larry�s static machine in the hall and suspect our neighbors can hear it too. I�ve grown used to it and I am sleeping well. Maybe Larry has a point.
Tom and Dave are staying up the road a ways at the Slack House Farm B & B, another last minute change from Contours. It sounds like an interesting place. Everything grown or produced there is organic. They stop by about 7:00 and we walk to the pub where we are to eat dinner. The three of them had stopped there for a quick pint towards the end of their day�s hike and the owner promised us a ride back to our digs. The place is called The Samson Inn and the food is pretty good.
In the morning, the owner shows up at our room while I�m showering. I assume he�s complaining about the noise of the static machine. I couldn�t be more wrong. As Larry explains he was worried about the extra electricity the thing was using. I feel vindicated in my earlier judgment. We meet his wife, Elaine, at breakfast and she is also rather tense. I predict a short career for them as B & B owners.
The Dowles serve up a fine proper English breakfast. I have always believed, mostly based on my Hong Kong experience, that such a breakfast included baked beans. It appears that is not the case in Northern England. Maybe black pudding is more traditional here.
I notice that the weather looks very threatening and I decide once again to �do� Hadrian�s Wall on the bus, especially after listening to my companions� stories of the previous day. I wish my friends Godspeed and climb into Brad�s van for the ride to Vindolanda Fort and Museum.
Vindolanda is a most interesting site. It not only has the usual ruins of a Roman fort, it also has a number of exhibits and displays of what life was like in the adjoining village. The museum is excellent. The site includes a reproduction of a temple to woodland nymphs, actual Roman tombstones, stone plaques and a restored croft from the sixth century showing how much harder life was after the fall of the Roman Empire. As usual you will find photos in the Vindolanda and Walltown Album.
I am so entranced, I lose track of the time and am in danger of missing the bus I planned to take. If I do miss it, I�ll have to wait an hour for the next one. I hurry as much as my aching tendon and tender knees will allow. I see the bus and wave my arms at the bus driver who I can see in his side view mirror. I�m sure we�ve made eye contact and he can see me waving. I believe this right up to the time he pulls away, leaving me cursing my crippled state. I decide to walk to the next stop, the Once Brewed Northumberland National Park Centre.
This turns out to be a serious mistake. I am about a half mile into the two-mile trek when the wind whips up and the rain starts falling in great quantities. I laugh in the face of this as I�ve remembered to bring my umbrella and my Celebrex this time. Unfortunately, the weather laughs back as I realize the wind is so strong that I can�t use my umbrella. Hah! I have my Gore-tex jacket and hood to protect me. What I don�t have is windshield wipers on my glasses so I�m forced to put them in my pocket and struggle on with what�s left of my eyesight. The headwind is so strong that I can�t see much anyway. Then disaster strikes. My left knee buckles. Pain I can handle but it�s difficult to walk on one leg. I hold on to a nearby tree to stay erect and try to figure out what I�m going to do next. I can wait an hour for the next bus. I can wait for my knee to recover, or I can try hitch a ride, something I had tried unsuccessfully the previous Sunday. I decide, instead, to try to wave a car down. Lucky for me, an older couple stops and picks me up for the short ride to the Visitor�s Centre. There are times pity can be a positive emotion.
The Visitor�s Centre is a beautiful little haven from the elements. It contains much information about the flora and fauna of the area and even has free Internet access. There is a couch where I can take the load off my buckled knee and do some exercises I know will alleviate the pain. I grab a Coke Light from the machine and start to feel good again. I start a conversation with the attendant at the Centre. I ask her what is with the two names �Once Brewed� and �Twice Brewed?� She tells me the story, as she knows it.
It appears a contingent of soldiers led by a General Wade was headed for Carlisle from Newcastle to engage Bonnie Prince Charlie. They stopped at the inn for a pint or two and the general complained the ale wasn�t strong enough, and urged the innkeeper to �brew it again:� hence the name �Twice Brewed.� The general liked the result so much that he stayed too long at the inn missing Bonnie Prince Charlie. Wade blamed it on poor road conditions, which helped get the 18th-century Military Road built. As for Once Brewed, it was at one time a youth hostel. The sponsor was a tee-totaller named Lady Trevelyan. In her speech opening the hostel she observed that it was uncomfortably close to the Twice Brewed Inn. �We will serve nothing stronger than tea,� she remarked, �and I hope even that will only be once-brewed!� The name stuck.
Around noon the rain stops and I take the bus to the Roman Army Museum (Carvoran). This museum, which is administered by the Vindolanda Foundation, is a little kitschy but I love it, nevertheless. It has among other things, a virtual tour of Hadrian�s Wall as it was in the second century. You are actually presented with a bird�s eye view of the wall as seen by a Roman eagle. It also has a recruiting film for the Roman Army. I watch it with a group of eight and nine year old children and they are transfixed.
I�m worried about my knee buckling so I decide to pass on accompanying the guys today and instead will do my usual thing of visiting forts, museums, and castles.
I walk the mile or so to the Birdoswald Roman Fort and Visitor Centre. The Visitor�s Centre is interesting primarily because it�s housed in the ancestral home of John Clayton, the man acknowledged as being responsible for first recognizing the historical and cultural importance of the wall. He started some of the archeological uncovering of the forts and towns as well as reconstructing stretches of the wall.
I walk the ruins of the fort and follow the wall to the ruins of a nearby milecastle. Amazingly, while I am strolling through a farm field in Northern England, I am talking to Pam who is visiting the Canary Islands using my mobile phone, even though, we both have Hong Kong cell phones. I also exchange text messages with my friend Glenn in Hong Kong. I may not be intimidated by technology but I can still be amazed by it.
The vistas from the milecastle are outstanding and I take a number of pictures. You can see them in the Birdoswald Album on my photo site. I walk back to the bus stop and grab the trusty AD122 to Carlisle. On arriving in Carlisle, I first check out the train station and the immediate downtown area. It is a vibrant interesting place. I jump back on the bus to visit the Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery.
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