I woke at about 7am, but lingered in my sleeping bag until about 7.45am. This was to be the shortest day of the whole trip, with a mere 6.5 miles along Hadrian's Wall from Greenhead to the oddly named Once Brewed. I generally preferred to walk on my own, but the previous evening Dave and I had agreed to do today's walk together because I'd been so unsettled by my experience with Gordon. We weren't sure whether Gordon would be walking it too or not, but we'd decided to have breakfast at the hostel and make a very late start at about 10am. Breakfast was at 8am, though, so eventually I had to get up, get a quick wash and get dressed.
I enjoyed a very leisurely breakfast - Weetabix, 2 hash browns with beans & 2 veggie sausages, coffee (by accident) and toast - chatting with a man and his son who were walking the newly opened Hadrian's Wall Path together. There were also quite a number of cyclists at the table: I'm not sure what route they were pursuing, but the two women with whom I'd shared a room were also walking Hadrian's Wall. As is often the case, work expanded to fill the time available, and it was after 10am by the time I'd managed to pack up, get my boots on, make my flask and get out of the front door. It had been a nice hostel, with a friendly and relaxed warden.
As soon as I got out of the Youth Hostel garden my heart sank to see Gordon sitting at the little table where Dave and I had drunk our beers the night before. I saw that Dave was walking over to him, though, and so I thought I'd better go too, to find out what was going on. Dave spoke briefly to Gordon and then turned back. Gordon and I exchanged polite greetings from a distance, and Dave told me that Gordon was waiting for a bus. I didn't see him again.
Shortly after that Dave and I set off in search of the wall. We almost went wrong immediately at Thirlwall Castle, but we realised our mistake and returned to the correct route pretty quickly. I saw a number of walls along the early part of the way, but none of them turned out to be Hadrian's. Eventually we found it after passing through what looked like a little nature reserve at Walltown Quarry, and took the opportunity to stand around on top.
The weather was beautifully sunny, and the scenery was interesting and attractive. The route was very much up and down, but I felt OK about that because after such a short day I'd otherwise have felt a little guilty about enjoying yet another self-indulgent meal in the pub in the evening...
We passed a very scenic natural pool in the middle of a pasture, around which cows were lying about sunbathing...
...and a little later on we came across what seemed to be a most interesting Roman variation on the cat flap.
We stopped at Cawfields Quarry for lunch...
...and Dave went for a swim. While he was swimming I found a very interesting dragon fly resting on a rock, and fulfilled a long cherished ambition by managing to obtain a photograph :-)
We spent about an hour at Cawfields - Dave needed to re-patch his blisters after his swim, because his patches had worked loose in the water - and then set off to walk the remaining 3 miles or so to Once Brewed. There was a great deal more steep up and down, and I cleared my conscience about earning my supper...
...but it really wasn't very much later before we turned to take a final look at what lay behind us before descending to the little road that would take us to the Youth Hostel on the B6318.
Unusually, because it was only just after 4pm when we arrived, the hostel was already open, so we checked in. People were barbecuing outside, and it smelled pretty wonderful. Dinner in the pub later on was Greek salad with both feta and haloumi (deep joy!) followed by mushroom stroganoff with chips. I also had two pints of cider, which were very nice indeed.
Although the day had been a short one I was still absolutely exhausted, and fell asleep at the table trying to use my mobile phone. This was pointed out to me the following morning by my room mate as we chatted before she went down to breakfast. She and her husband had remarked upon it at the time, and she'd concluded that either I was walking the Pennine Way or I had a serious drugs problem :-)
Dave and I went back over to the Youth Hostel pretty early, and I got straight into my bottom bunk (ugh: claustrophobia...). I'd plugged my mobile into the charger, and meant to get up again in 20 minutes to switch it off as for some reason it produces big blue flashes every couple of seconds during the charging process, and I was afraid that my room mate (whom I hadn't yet met) would be unable to sleep. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I was asleep, though, and it was about 2am before I woke up, saw the charger flashing and crawled across to pull it out of the wall.
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