15 June 12. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. Today is the last one, you will be relieved to hear. Today’s pictures have been added to the Cancer Research page. Although we thoroughly enjoyed the walk, after walking a total of 30 miles yesterday it was wonderful waking up knowing that we didn’t have to walk again today! But we hadn’t quite finished. We still had 2 more stamps to complete our passport, so we set off about 11am, of course stopping on the way in a pub to upload yesterdays pictures. We drove back through Carlisle to get the first stamp at the Sands Sport centre and then drove back to Bowness-on-Solway to get the second. We retraced our steps to the ‘Banks Promenade’ which is the official start of the walk – and took some more pictures, that explains why we are both wearing ‘I walked the wall’ T-shirts at what seems to be the beginning of the walk …. Thank you so much everybody for all of your support during our trip and your help in raising much needed funds for three very worthwhile causes. Lots of love Helen, Stuart, Steve and Jill. xxxxx 14 June 12. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. Today’s pictures will be on BIBIC, with a few updates on the other pages too. So, this was the start of Day 5, we are well on our way to the finish line. We started from Halton Shields about 9.30 but it took about 45 minutes to get there by car, which just shows what distance we have covered so far. Our intention was to get to Wallsend, leaving about 7 miles to cover on Day 6, as we had planned. As we got closer to Newcastle and began our walk along the river Tyne, we were told that the Olympic Torch was going through Newcastle on Friday so we decided to try and go for gold , as the weather forecast wasn’t looking good for Friday either and we are fine weather walkers… We both felt absolutely fine when we stopped for lunch about 2.30, by which time we had already covered 14.5 miles, we then checked the map to discover that we still had another 14 miles or more to cover if we were to finish today. At this rate, we would still be walking about 9pm…… but we decided to carry on . As we continued, we were pleased to see a sign for Tynemouth- but not so pleased to see that it was still 14 miles – the journey seemed to take an age and although the journey along the River was pretty it seemed never ending –our target was to get to Wallsend by about 4.30, we didn’t dare stop for a rest otherwise we would not have got going again….it was also hot which slowed us down. We finally reached Wallsend at 6.15. Of course, by that time, the visitors centre was shut so we couldn’t get our passport stamped there – but lucky us! We carried on to the next best thing- the Total Garage down the road where we had a hot chocolate to celebrate….check out the pictures! So, we still had a couple more hours walking to do to get to Tynemouth , and this part of journey was pretty uneventful. We followed a cycle path, but it was mostly along the main roads. We could see why most people stop at Wallsend, but we wanted to get to the coast, so we went from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. So, we have finished!!!!!! HURRAH!!!!! YIPPEE!!!!! . We covered a total of 28.5 miles today, and have covered 94 miles over 5 days , but this would not have been possible had it not been for the fantastic support of our land crew who have driven a total of over 500 miles to drop us off and collect us. So, a BIG thank you to Steve and Jill. We are missing a couple of stamps on our passports so we are driving back (not walking!) to collect these, apparently we will also get an exclusive purple achievers badge and certificate from the Kings Arms in Bowness on Solway – cant wait! – So check out our website for more pictures tomorrow!!!!!!! Thank you so much for your support which has really motivated us and kept us going… See you tomorrow Lots of love Helen, Stuart, Steve and Jill 13 June 12. Thank you for reading today’s blog. Today’s pictures will be added to the Air Ambulance page. We were both a bit exhausted after yesterday’s walk, we walked 15 mile over 7 hrs and also walked over a mile to get to the road to be picked up. This morning, our sherpa’s took us back to last night’s finishing point, ‘Sewing Shields’ for our journey today. We started with a bit of trepidation about 9.30am , not knowing what the terrain would be like, but hoping that we would be able to get further today , possibly to Halton Shields. We were relieved to find that we covered the distance really well as the terrain was a bit flatter. You’ll be glad to know that we didn’t take many pictures today to bore you with, although the views were amazing, even we got to the point that we didn’t want to take any more! Although we continued to walk along the Hadrian’s wall path, there wasn’t as much of the wall to see as yesterday. There are milecastles and turrets every half mile along the route, and although I started to take pictures of them all at the beginning, I started to get a bit ‘walled out’ during today. The weather was kind to us again, a little bit of fine misty rain but we didn’t give in to wearing waterproofs so we could confidently say that it didn’t rain !! Stuart managed to avoid being bitten today by gnats as he sprayed himself with repellent, unfortunately I didn’t, so I have ended up with about 25 bites….. and I thought blisters would have been the problem. We stopped for a break at Chesters Fort about 12.30 and made good time to reach Halton Shields at 4.30, where we were picked up by our faithful sherpa’s. J I have included a delightful picture of a church called’Heavensfield’ – should be in a story, plus the woods we walked through, and us both finally getting our passports stamped now we have found where they are! We don’t feel as tired today knowing that we will be well on our way to Newcastle tomorrow so we are nearing the end. We didn’t think that we would be as far as we are, so we are hoping to finish by around Friday lunchtime……Distance covered today 16 miles ….. total so far, 64. More tomorrow, Bye for now, Stuart, Helen, Jill and Steve. xxxxx
So, in the last picture of our trip we are showing off our T-shirts and our completed Passports.
12 June 12. Thank you for reading today’s blog! Today’s pictures will be added to the Cancer Research Page. Enjoy…..
We set off this morning from Birdoswald fort, and a fab view of the Wall continued for the whole day.11 June 12. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. I have added some photos to the BIBIC team page for you to have a look at today now we have sussed what we are doing!
Yesterday someone told us you could get a summer passport for Hadrians wall- you get stamps on the passport when you pass through certain forts, and when you reach Wallsend, you get an achiever’s certificate. Unfortunately as we didn’t find out about it until yesterday, we’ve missed 3 so far, so we will have to drive back and get the stamps later. J
Today was the best and the worst – the best for the outstanding views as you will see from our photos, but the worst for the terrain, at best we were walking at 600 ft, at worst we reached 1127ft, but the views were worth it.
We were really lucky again with the weather, and the rain held off – and it was sunny as we finished. We covered 15 miles in total today, making 48 miles altogether.
Steve and Jill picked us up from Haydon Bridge, although we had to walk a short distance to find the car.
Loads of thanks to our sherpa’s who are doing a great job in looking after us, and picking us up after a very long day walking…. We finished today about 7pm, very exhausted but looking forward to dinner and a very large glass or two of wine....
More tomorrow……
Lots of love,
Helen, Stuart, Steve and Jill
We didn’t get as far as we wanted to yesterday and we went a bit wrong- I’m sure that walking through an Industrial Estate wasn’t part of the plan…. So we hoped to go a bit further today. Our trusty land crew took us back to Rickersby and we set off about 9.30 on today’s challenge. We were really lucky again with the weather and hoped to get to Haltwhistle today .We weren’t far from the M6 to start with, but quickly left all the traffic behind us. The time went very quickly and along the route we found a few honesty boxes, where there were drinks and snacks and an honesty box for you to pay….Our story: We wanted to set ourselves a challenge, and hopefully this will be the first of many. Stuart and I are going to walk along Hadrian’s wall. We will travelling up to Solway on Saturday 9 June, starting the walk on Sunday 10. We aim to walk approx 16 miles per day and hope to complete the walk in 6 days, allowing for some R&R before travelling home. Luckily for us, our spouses have agreed to come and will be our land crew so we don’t have too much to carry along the way and thankfully no need to sleep in tents either! We have been busy preparing and training for the walk and knowing what the English weather is like most of the time, we have been out training in pouring rain, although we are keeping our fingers crossed for good weather on the day
By about 4.30 we had reached Birdoswald Fort and we decided that we would stop here for today, having covered 15 ½ miles.
So, enjoy our pictures, more blog tomorrow.!
Lots of love, Helen, Stuart and our trusty land crew, Steve and Jill who has now commandeered the front seat of MY car.
xxxxxx
10 June 12 Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. It doesnt seem to be easy uploading the photos so we will try and add them just to the Air Ambulance page.
We started today about 11am at Bowness-on -Solway. Steve and Jill dropped us off, taking a picture of us as we set off– we were all excited as we headed off and said our good byes – and after a couple of minutes we realised that we were going in the wrong direction so we had to head back, waving to our spouses on the way. That’s why there are two starting pictures….
The weather wasn’t great when we started but at least it wasn’t raining…. knowing what the British weather is normally like we only brought waterproofs as we were sure it was going to rain. By mid morning the weather improved and was quite hot, and we realised we should have brought sun cream and sunhats but we have learnt a lesson for tomorrow.
Our journey to Carlisle was very picturesque, and we met some wonderful people along the way. I’ve included a couple of pictures that we took along the way to show you what the route is like. Unfortunately there wasn’t a sign of any of the Wall anywhere but we really did walk along the trail honest! We walked about 18 ½ miles in total today finishing by the M6, ready to start tomorrow.
So a really fab start to our walk, and we don’t feel too bad, lets hope we get on OK tomorrow.
Lots of love, Helen Stuart and Land Crew x x x x x
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