Day 3: Walwick to Winshields

Today was probably the highlight of the trip so far. After a relatively miserable night at the Bunk Barn, I needed a boost. I woke up and took a shower. Things started to go wrong right there. Remember, the showers are two buildings away from the bunk barn. So, I gathered up everything, borrowed Phil’s slippers and walked over to the showers. This time, I was smart enough to take the right most shower stall which I had heard was the one that worked best. I was half-way through my shower when I realized I had forgotten to bring my towel. Not sure what to do, I was happy when someone walked in to use the toilets (these were all in one small messy room – the five stalls were divided into two toilets and three showers). I yelled out asking who it was and hear “It’s Ian.” I begged Ian to go back to the bunk barn and bring me my towel, which he kindly did.

Then, I went back to the bunk barn and took my time packing up. I was very worried about my foot and so I used Phil’s athletic tape to bind up my left foot quite tight. The tape was very sticky and I was worried about its impact on my foot, but I had no choice. After a while, Phil asked me if I had had breakfast and I said no. Still wrapping up my things, I walked over to the main house and asked for breakfast. The lady looked startled and said that she had been told we were all done. I told her there were still six or so of us in the barn who needed breakfast and this set of a panic in the kitchen. They said they needed to go get more supplies and there was a little shouting back and forth between the people in the kitchen. Seeing what I had set off, I told her I would just make sure that the others in the barn needed breakfast. I ran back to barn and discovered to my horror that I was the only one who still had not had breakfast. I went back and let them know and there was a sigh of relief. They asked me what I wanted and I said, “anything.” “You don’t want a full English breakfast, do you?” she asked in a voice that made it clear that she was hoping my answer was no. I took the hint and asked for two fried eggs and toast along with some orange juice and coffee. As I was enjoying this breakfast, she stepped in and informed me that the last group was actually waiting for me outside and I needed to hurry up. I gulped down the last of the breakfast, filled up my Camelbak and headed out to join the last group to leave the Barn.

I had promised Phil that I would walk slower today in exchange for borrowing his slippers for my shower. I also assumed I would walk slower because of my injury. Also, today was supposed to be the day we would see more of the actual wall, something we have seen very little of so far. Both of us wanted someone who would take photos of us with the segments of the wall we’d see today.

It was barely fifteen minutes into our walk that I realized it was going to be hard. I was walking slower, but Phil was much slower. The truth is that it is very hard to walk slower than your natural pace. Especially since I was in pain and wanted to keep a steady gait going, I found it difficult to constantly stop and encourage Phil to move faster. So, I finally gave up and tried to walk at my normal pace. It didn’t take long for me to leave Phil far behind. The pain was bad but nothing like yesterday. I just kept going and discovered that if I planted my left foot on a rightward-sloping slope in such a way that it landed at an angle, the pain was much less. I tried to do this whenever I could. I also had borrowed Archie’s walking stick and that helped a great deal. I am convinced that it is going to result in significant shoulder aches tomorrow though, since I am offloading a lot of weight on the stick now. If I said today was painless, I’d be lying. But, it certainly was not as excruciating as yesterday. I’d call it extreme discomfort. At one point in the afternoon, I felt a sharp pain in the foot and it almost immediately dissipated. The pain in the foot seemed to lessen considerably. Again, it isn’t painless, but it certainly seemed to drop. Maybe I strained the tendon back into its spot or something. The rest of the walk was only under moderate discomfort.

One problem was that the bandage I had tied this morning was cutting into my foot at the back. I had discovered this problem in the morning and used my nail clippers to slightly relieve the stress in the back by cutting part of it off right behind the heel. When I stopped for lunch, I took off my left shoe and sock as I could feel something that seemed like a blister. I couldn’t see anything and because the plaster was not feeling very good, I decided to take it off. Big mistake. There were about three blisters under the plaster. One on the left side of the foot, a small one on the right side of the foot and a fairly nig one in the center. When I peeled the bandage off, it took a chunk of skin along with it. I poured a bunch of Gold Bond foot powder on the open blisters and put my socks back on and kept going. I did have two more ibuprofen with lunch (so I am now operating regularly on 6 a day) and I was surprised at how little trouble I had the rest of the walk. Later I found I have another rather filled up blister under the little toe on my right foot.

And the scenery today was spectacular. We walked through woods, through sweeping fields of pasture, and along steep cliffs. We even got to walk on the wall during one small part (the only portion where you can actually walk on the wall). The terrain was very rough. There were many exceptionally steep parts both going up and down. It seemed like we were going up and down all the time, but we must have been trending up as we passed the highest point of the wall during the climb. It’s all downhill from here! We really had spectacular scenery almost throughout the day today. Plus, we got to walk along the wall most of the way. It was also a significantly shorter walk than yesterday and so I was very happy.

As we walked towards the “Twice Brewed Pub” at the end of our walk today, I was chatting with one of the walkers, Michael. We joked about trying to beat each other to the pub because we had found out that they had some rooms to rent. Given our miserable experience last night, we both were not looking forward to another night in a tent on the floor or in a bunk barn. We went in to the pub and I tried a pint of a local brew. Then, I asked one of the barmaids if they had a room available. “We have one double,” she said. “How much?” I asked, ready to pay up to about fifty quid (see, I’m adopting English slang!) for a comfortable room for the night. “82 pounds,” she said. As I was debating this, Justin, one of the other walkers came up behind me and said that he would really be interested in the room if I would share it with him. Since I had already spoken to Michael (and there was only one room), I wasn’t sure. Finally, Michael backed out and said Justin could have the room. We both agreed to share it. It was only later, when we were sitting at the pub when one of the people mentioned, “You know, a double means one bed, don’t you?” “Huh, how can a ‘double’ mean one bed? Then why is it a ‘double’?” I asked, thinking they were joking? “A room with two beds is called a twin. A room with one double bed is a double,” they said. I went to the room and checked, and sure enough, it did have only one bed. By this time, I was too vested in this comfortable room with an attached bathroom and the prospect of being in a tent at the campsite looked even less appealing. I looked at Justin and we agreed that we’d manage. Of course, the jokes started almost immediately. I heard all about big spoon, little spoon, head-to-toe, Velcro, and all kinds of other lewd things from the group. It was all just envy, of course!

Not only is the room comfortable, but it has wi-fi, which allows me to catch up on the blog posts. I’ll try and add a few photos today. But more will come later.

Day 2: Heddon to Walwick

Today was a bad day. I think I gained a little insight into some tired American football clichés – “Play through the pain,” and the admonition to running backs “Just worry about the next first down – not the next touchdown.” During most of the day I was in excruciating pain. I’m not talking about extreme discomfort – I’m talking about sharp pains that literally brought tears to my eyes at times.

The day started quite well. I woke up comfortably at 7 AM and took another shower and an Aleve. I am sure that I won’t have this luxury the next few days when we will all be sharing rooms and bathrooms. We came down for a fantastic English breakfast with corn flakes, bacon (what we would call Canadian bacon), an egg sunny side-up, sausages, buttered toast, marmalade, and coffee. It was delicious and filling. If you ever do the walk, this is a B&B I would heartily recommend. Since our “Ironsign B&B” was down the Hadrian’s path about two miles from our starting point for the day’s walk, we took a cab back to the Houghton North Farm Bunk Barn where everyone else was staying. We realized that we could just leave our backpacks at the B&B and pick it up as we walked past the place two miles after leaving for the morning. When we got back to the Houghton North Farm, we were given our packed lunches. One of the other walkers, Jo, offered to carry my lunch pack since she had her backpack. I agreed.

I got separated from the group barely fifteen minutes into the walk for the day. Archie, my walking companion reminded me that we were fast walkers and that I may not want to get too far ahead of my lunch pack. I agreed and decided to wait for Jo and my lunch before catching up with him. I stopped and waited as all the different walkers went by me with no sign of Jo. About 20 minutes later, she came by with a small group. Unfortunately, her water pack was leaking and they had to stop and fix it. I took my lunch from her and walked on. About twenty minutes later, I walked by the Ironsign B&B and picked up my backpack. By this time, I was at least a mile behind the others (except Jo and her group). It didn’t take me long to realize something was wrong.

As I was walking, I was getting increasingly concerned about my left foot. Right along the left outside edge of the foot was a progressively sharp pain with every step I took. I tried to “shake it off,” but it kept getting worse. About an hour into the walk, I was starting to wince with every step I took. Another mile later, I was wondering if I was going to make it. The pain just kept getting worse and I was noticeably limping by this time. Every step sent a sharp pain along my foot. Within another half hour, each step was sending a sharp pain up my leg. By 11 o’clock, I was in such unbearable pain that I occasionally had tears fill my eyes. I just decided to focus on taking one step at a time. I had fleeting thoughts of calling a cab, calling off the walk, finding a ride to the next destination, etc. I really couldn’t imagine how I was going to walk all the way in this excruciating pain. But, having no choice, I just kept going. “Walk through the pain,” I told myself. I tried different gaits, different limps, transferring all the weight to my right foot, etc. Some of these tricks worked for a while but the pain always came back. I dreaded stopping because it would mess up some gait that was working.

I had decided in the morning that I would stop for lunch at 1 PM. At about 12:45, I passed by a bench and decided to stop and was just about to take my backpack off when I glanced at my watch and saw it read “12:46.” I thought it would be cheating if I stopped early (and it would make my post-lunch walk longer) and so decided to soldier on. “Walk through the pain …” I finally ran into Dan and the rest of a fairly large group at The Errington Arms, a nice looking pub. I stopped for lunch and asked Dan for a bandage. I took off my shoes and thought that if I bound my left foot tight with a bandage, it may help with the pain. So, I tried to bind my foot as tightly as I could. Dan had a map and during their conversation, I discovered that not only were we still about 8-9 miles away, but that our B&B was quite a bit outside of Walwick (pronounced “Wallick,” of course). Apparently, it was a lot more than 16 miles we had to do today.

The packed lunch was actually quite excellent – egg and tomato sandwich (It’s tom-ah-toe, not tom-aye-toe), lemon drizzle cake, sausage pastry, an apple, and orange juice. I ate lunch, drank a diet coke, and I popped two ibuprofen before setting out again after about a 25-minute break. It was still extremely painful. I just wanted to get to the destination. I think it helped that I walked alone all day – I would have had a hard time not complaining about the pain if there was someone to listen.

I also encountered my first chunk of the wall. All along, we’ve been following the “Hadrian’s Wall Pathway,” but have seen very little of the wall. Finally, I encountered a nice 15-foot section of the wall that was marked. I tried to set up the self-timer and took a few photos. I think I tried to smile – but given my foot pain, I don’t know if I managed it.

The scenery was beautiful. It varied from vast meadows and fields of grain dotted with sheep to picturesque trails through some woods. I tried hard to enjoy the scenery. It wasn’t too bad since the scenery changed every now and then – it wasn’t constantly changing. So, I had enough stretches of the same view that I could put my head down and make progress (that’s all I was focused on). The pathway goes through many, many pastures that belong to private owners. So, there are a variety of “styles” of turnstiles – most of which need to be climbed over. And, it isn’t always an easy climb. There are sometimes as many as four or five steps down from the turnstile you’ve just climbed. At one point, I had to walk right past a bull that was sitting on the path. I was nervous because there was a story about a lady doing the walk recently who was killed by a bull. She was walking with a dog that barked at the bull and it charged.

Unbelievably, by about 4:30, the pain in my foot turned into a dull ache. This actually helped a lot. The sharp pains were much worse. I think my foot was so swollen that the shoe was acting as a sort of tourniquet that helped ease the pain a little. Or, it may have taken a couple of hours for the ibuprofen to really kick in. At one time, I was going downhill and discovered that the pain went down as I speeded up down hill. After that, I actually started running down every down slope so I could make some painless progress. Any points where the pain was down, I would speed up.

I finally made it to the Greencarts Bunk Barn at about 5:30 PM. Given the long out-of-the-way walk to get to this place, it should have been better. This is really rustic. The barn where we are all staying is, well, a barn! It just has a bunch of bunk beds moved into the barn. When I went for a shower, the water just stopped after ten minutes. Since I was still covered with soap, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I found that if I turned off the water for about 30 seconds and quickly turned it back on, I would get one quick spurt of water. Since I just wanted to get the soap off, I did this several times and managed to get most of the soap off. I then went into one of the other bathrooms and used the sink to wash out my socks and underwear. My T-shirt of the day gets left behind here. I really should have brought some flip flops. It’s a pain to get my shoes on every time I need to walk to the bathroom (which is in a neighboring building). If you’re ever on Hadrian’s Walk, my advice to you is to skip Greencarts Bunk Barn.

It wasn’t all bad. Dinner was actually quite good. But then again, when you’re that hungry, anything tastes great. There’s a tiny TV on a table here (the picture keeps disappearing every now and then), but the crowd is watching the Netherlands play Uruguay in the World Cup semis. We have two Dutch walkers in the group and one of them, Arjan, has brought a flag and even painted his face. The mood is good now as Holland is up 1-0.

My foot isn’t hurting at all now. But every time I get up from the chair my knee hurts and my entire body aches. If anyone needs to know that I am suffering through this walk for a sense of schadenfreude, they can smile now.

I bet tomorrow will be a better day.