Wallsend – Heddon on the Wall 15.7 Miles or 25k

The first section of Hadrians Wall Walk, takes you through the city of Newcastle with the starting point at Wallsend.

Wallsend, is close to the break waters between the North Sea and Rive Tyne. This route, is a gentle walk, which if timed correctly you can grab a meal and some local beers. There are also plenty of opportunities for toilet breaks.

We had booked accommodation at the YHA in Newcastle, this has street parking and is a short walk from the metro and the route the wall plods along.

Wallsend, has several points of interest including a small section of the Wall. For us, the use of public transport, back into the City meant that we had ease to get to the start point and most importantly the hostel.

The reasoning behind choosing to walk from Wallsend to Bowness on Sea is more about the emotional experience than the practical choices of the commute. This route gives you a greater understanding of the history of the wall, the Romans and the evolution of Great Britton.

Day One – Dynamic Planning

The emotions of getting to the start, are always mixed. They include, excitement, anxiety, and the big one being the reality of what I have agreed to do and who with. Which feels similar to imposter syndrome yet one of the parts I actually thrive on.

The excitement and reality are very obvious to explain. They are usually with lots of noises from me. I can natter, and it’s usually random, jumbled topics.

These topics range from tales from the 40 years of long distance walks to the days I used to drive. Each time I tell them, I add bits, making the story more interesting and hopefully funny.

This natter, is the way I try to ignore the trauma within my head of what have I agreed to undertake.

Just to recap, I was part of a team of three, Helen, Will and myself. I will explain a bit more about them as the story unfolds.

I am the type of person that likes to take hold of the organising. I am the “must be in control type of person”. Invest plenty of time, obsessing around the history elements and the opportunities to divert from the route. In search of seeing the most beautiful or interesting locations. If left alone, I can spend hours, if not days planning. I use this website as a way to write my plans, with more posts, not made public than the ones that you hopefully read and enjoy.

For this adventure, I had pulled together the accommodation, trying to choose places that are reasonable priced, comfortable and near the routes. I research the concept in the general direction of the walk and easy to “leapfrog the two cars”.

The three of us are all experienced long distance walkers and have known each other for well over a decade. We all have more outdoors kit than most families. Always looking for the lightest and more usable pieces and in my case, usually bought from Vinted and EBay. I have boxes of stuff!

The Commute

Day one, Ilfracombe to the start. We had aimed to drive up in two cars. Park our cars at the hostel and jump on the metro tram to the beginning and all by lunchtime.

This would enable us plenty of time to complete the planned 25 kilometres, eat and have a few beers and get back to the accommodation for a final evening beer and relax watching the sun set over the River Tyne.

I had imagined the final part of the day with more colour and tranquility than what actual happened.

However, this did not happen as I had romantically planned. I had to make a massive dynamic change!

Will, the other male adventurer had to make a decision, one that changed everything.

I can describe him as a very ambitious man. A busy chap with “projects”.

He works in a local academy as the “gym hand”. A volunteer with the coastguards, In the evenings, he runs an established yet a growing business, North Devon Karate.

Plus has his hand in many different entrepreneurial ventures.

He recently noticed a gap in the local farming world and bought some miniature goats. Another string to his entrepreneurial guitar was when he bought several bails of hay, stored them and simple sold them for a profit.

His hobbies are so varied that they match a neurological pattern of a kangaroo being chased by a wild animal on search for its lunch. He has either owned or still has most makes of kayak and water based toys, drones, and so much more. I was looking forward to listening to his tales and learn from his lessons of life.

In the months leading up to the expedition, he had purchased a motorbike, prearranged his motorcycle riding test, for the weekend before the adventure.

He arrived to take his test, a 100 mile round trip to be told their was a clerical error and the test was now in the morning of our departure date.

He had every intention to do the test and meet us on route, or at the hostel. I had talked through with him the options and we came up with a solution of splitting first leg into two.

Making the first leg, shorter and carried out in the late evening. Followed by an early start to catch us up by lunchtime.

He is young and has a great approach towards walking. I can best describe his approach in a bricklayers term. “head down and arse upwards”.

He plugs in his headphones into his ears and is off, occasionally looking upwards for directions, reaching a walking pace of an average marathon runner.

During the planning stages we divided the route into five days and one evening.

This allowed for the journey to Newcastle, drop of our kit and make our way to the starting point.

The next few days, we were going to start the car parking game called “leap frogging”. This basically means placing one car at a planned end and driving back to the start of that leg.

Trust me, that is the easiest way to describe what is actually going to happen. This concept can make the distances for the remaining four days equal and with a sensible finishing time. Usually with a meal and local beer. The reality is usually totally different.

“Hello it’s me!”

The phone rang, and at a time that Helen and I, were within an hour of arriving at the hostel on the edge of Gateshead.

The journey according to Google Maps was a 5 hour trip, crossing the UK as we drove “Up North”.

However, the reality of the trip it turned out to be closer to 8 hours! We were closer to 1600 than 1200 noon.

Anyhow, Will, phoned us with an update on the bike test.

The call started with an apology and reluctantly, just like that, Will left the expedition.

He agreed to pay for the accommodation and eat humble pie for the following few years.

Helen and I, spent the rest of the trip running through ideas, the conversation went back and forth, the first option was “shall we cancel”.

Once we agreed to continue the next thoughts went to “How are we going to manage the distances” and “do we re-route and make the call on the accommodation and add a third hostel in Carlisle.”

The original plan was to simple use two hostels, travelling back each evening and leaving before 0830 to travel the previous days end to become that days starting point. The use of “leapfrogging” and lightening our walking packs by leaving a bag of drinks and food in the car at the end.

By the time we drove into Newcastle, we had decided to continue, manage each day as they rolled, and reviewed the daily distances.

In other words, my head was playing through the routes I had planned on OS maps and thinking “oh shit” as I recalled again, in my head, the up and coming transport issues. The distances could be huge as we needed to reach public transport. Then another thought was now obvious, it was going to be just the two of us.

If one of us dropped out, what would the other one do?

Although we had originally planned to “walk the wall” within five days with an aim of 18 – 25 miles per day. Plus planned the Saturday as a simple day, plodding through Carlisle and eating a lunchtime feast at the end, Bowness on Sea.

I knew, at the back of my mind that this walk, was going to be a challenge and test my abilities to walk long days, but also aim to maintain a sensible plod towards the end enabling the other adventure Helen, to manage with her health condition. I will explain more later in the story.

We dropped our bags, left for the metro to begin the next adventure and one that definitely changed my approach for future adventures and aiming to encourage others to join me.

Once we had gone through the motions, settled into the hostel, which started out as a family of four room and now became a huge room for two.

The hostel staff were superb, they recognised my disability and, for the first time in my life they had created a “Personal Evacuation Plan”.

As you can imagine, this became the daily joke.

The PEP was appreciated and definitely helped the employee understand my needs, however, Helen, found great humour in asking me at every opportunity, if I needed to sit in the evacuation chair to get in and out of the building.

The Wall

The positive towards these new changes were not yet obvious, but the initial one turned out that the plan to walk a shorter distance on day one, eating and drinking locally was definitely one of them.

The walk from Wallsend to Newcastle is definitely best done at sunset.

Our first walk was shortened to allow for the later than planned arrival, the changes to having two cars. We still managed a comfortable 9 k.

The river Tyne travels West to East, in the UK the sun sets towards the South and with perfect timing, or in our case luck. The setting of the sun, spreads across the five bridges and over the industrial city. My picture doesn’t paint the picture of the actual sunset.

We watched the arrival of dusk whilst drinking a local beer or two, and ate chips, obviously with gravy.

This was possible, the calmest and most relaxing part of the forth coming expedition.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this short story.

The next day started in a random way. Please click.

Hadrians Wall – Day Two

Keep an eye out for the remaking days. The adventure had plenty events.