Day Two - Friday 18th May - Twice Brewed to Walton, High Rigg

Each day on this trip dawned with a beautiful clear sky, but the weather in this part of the country can change rapidly and as we left the hostel for a part ride, part trek up to the ridge for a short walk along Hadrian’s Wall, the weather deteriorated into a blustery, showery kind of day you would normally stay at home on. A local let us leave our bikes at the side of his property while we climbed to the top of the ridge. The view from the top was breathtaking but the walk was cut short by the inclement weather. I found the walk down a little tricky, the wind nearly took me off my feet and my cycling shoes weren’t finding much grip on the wet stones placed into the hillside to form a staircase. The easiest, safest way down was on my backside. The others fared better. Gold mountain goat awards go to Niki, Teri, Anthony and Ray.

Stephen had waited for us at the bottom and when we left he split from us to do his own thing for the day. The rest of us went the short distance to the fort museum at Vindolanda. No racks or lockers here. Entry £4.75. This is a nice museum with some good reconstructions and replicas and nice multimedia presentations. The site is most famous for the finding of Roman tablets which the British Museum has described as this country’s greatest treasure. The site is still being dug and it’s estimated that the archaeologists will at work here for another hundred years. There’s also a nice café and we spent a pleasant half hour here overlooking Brakies Burn, the replica temple and shop and marvelling at the varied bird life on show.

The next stop after Vindolanda was Haltwhistle. Haltwhistle is apparently at the centre of the British mainland. Draw a line from top to bottom and left to right and they cross at Haltwhistle. Like a lot of Pennine towns the village has a history linked to mining and at the centre is a monument to mining and quarrying courtesy of Tarmac. We had some lunch in a café and then went to the station in search of bike parts – Ray needed some brake pads. The station had some nice features a Victorian water tower and nice signal box. There’s also bike hire at the station shop but I didn’t check to see if the bikes have all the gears you would need in this part of the country. Ray didn’t get his bake pads but Teri got her black bullet sweets that one of her friends had recommended she bring back, we all got a bullet sample from the shop owner and Niki got a Northumbrian oldest flag in the country sticker for her bike and then Teri got two one for each pannier.

Out of Haltwhistle and it was back on the bikes, through Gilsand and Greenhead and up to another fort museum at Birdoswald. We didn’t go in this museum but took the time to model the Hadrian’s Wall 2007 (front) and Greenwich Cyclists (back) t-shirts that Anthony had bought for us. Nice touch. We decided against going in this museum, next time when we do west to east. Two of these in as many days is enough to get a good idea of the layout, history and the purpose.
Time for something different and our next stop was Lanercost Priory with a fascinating 12th century history of being repeatedly sacked by the likes of William Wallace and other hardy men from the north in kilts.  As well as a fascinating history the priory also has a couple of fine stained glass windows by William Morris.

From Lanercost Priory we made our way to Walton and High Rigg our B&B resting place for the night. Rooms were sorted out and we rode back into Walton and The Centurian public house in search of a Cumbrian lamb meal. Those wanted it managed to get lamb shanks, but I suspect these may have been from Tesco so the origin of the lamb is undetermined.

On returning to High Rigg our bikes were put up for the night in the unused cow shed. The cow shed is unused because our farmer/landlord Mr. Mounsey is allergic to cows and horses!

24 miles
2401ft of climbing