Most people picture Hadrian's Wall striding across lonely Northumberland crags. Wall mile 2 is the other end of the story: an urban stretch in the east of Newcastle upon Tyne, where the wall ran from the fort at Wallsend, Segedunum, westwards along the north bank of the Tyne towards the bridge and fort at Pons Aelius, beneath today's city centre. Very little of the wall itself is visible here; terraced houses, roads and shipyards have long since swallowed it. But you are standing on the first miles of a frontier that once ran coast to coast for about eighty Roman miles.
Newcastle's own history is layered right on top. The castle keep that gave the city its name sits on the site of the Roman fort, and the Tyne's bridges, from the famous green arch of the Tyne Bridge to the tilting Millennium Bridge, tell the tale of an industrial city that built ships, locomotives and coal fortunes for the world. At Wallsend, Segedunum has a reconstructed bathhouse, a section of rebuilt wall and a viewing tower over the fort's excavated foundations, and it is a good place to start a journey westwards.
Riding in Newcastle is city riding, with busy junctions, bus lanes, speed cameras and plenty of traffic, especially around rush hours and match days at St James' Park. The reward comes once you escape west along the Tyne valley, where the B6318 military road shadows the wall through open moorland with long straights, dips and crests, and the scenery grows wilder with every mile. Weather can be bracing even in summer, with strong westerly winds and showers that blow through in minutes.
Fuel, food and accommodation are plentiful everywhere around here. The Quayside is the place for a break, with cafés, pubs and the Sunday market, and if you are in the mood, a stottie cake, a dense, flat local bread, makes a good filling sandwich. The Hadrian's Wall Path begins at Wallsend too, so you may well meet walkers setting off on their week-long trek to the far end at Bowness-on-Solway.