CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Newcastle upon Tyne it runs 143 km to Newcastle upon Tyne; allow about 2 h 08 of riding. The stops in between: Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp, Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp, Fell End Roman temporary camp and section and Hadrian's Wall between the track to Cockmo.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 74 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The Tyne is crossed by a remarkable set of bridges within a short walk of each other. The Tyne Bridge, a green steel arch opened in 1928, is the one on the postcards, but the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson and opened in 1849 with a road below and a railway above, is the older marvel, and the little Swing Bridge, which opens by pivoting on a central pier, comes from the industrial age as well. Together they show how the city was built on coal, shipbuilding and engineering, and then rebuilt itself on culture, music and a fierce sense of humour.
Read the complete Newcastle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Newcastle is where the day begins. Next is Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp.
Haltwhistle likes to call itself the centre of Britain, and whether or not you believe the measurements, it sits at the very heart of Hadrian's Wall country. Just outside the town, on a gentle slope called Sunny Rigg, the outlines of two Roman temporary camps have been traced, rectangular enclosures with rounded corners where units on the march, or building the wall, pitched their leather tents behind a bank and a ditch for a night or a season. They are part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site, though on the ground you will see only faint lines in the grass, best appreciated from the air or in low evening light.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp.
Haltwhistle sits in the Tyne Gap, the low cleft where the South Tyne and the old Carlisle road squeeze between the high moors of the north Pennines and the Whin Sill ridge, and that gap is the reason the Romans cared about this ground. A temporary camp is exactly what it sounds like: a ditched and banked enclosure thrown up for a night or a few weeks by an army on the march or on building duty, then abandoned. Most were ploughed flat long ago and now show only as crop marks or faint corners in a pasture, so go in expecting a field, not a ruin. What you get is the story, and the story is good.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp. Next is Fell End Roman temporary camp and section.
Haltwhistle likes to call itself the centre of Britain, a claim based on measurements that no one outside the town quite trusts, but which has produced a very good tourist sign. The town sits in the South Tyne valley, a few kilometres south of Hadrian's Wall, and the wall and vallum between Fell End and the neighbouring crags form one of the most atmospheric sections of the whole frontier. The label here mentions a Roman temporary camp, and the district is full of such earthworks, built by marching legions as they moved through the area.
Read the complete Fell End Roman temporary camp and section write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fell End Roman temporary camp and section, about halfway. Next is Hadrian's Wall between the track to Cockmo.
The stretch of Wall near Cawfields is where the whole thing makes the most sense, because the Romans used the landscape. Here the Great Whin Sill, a hard ridge of dark dolerite, rises in a line of crags along the north, and the Wall runs along the top of it, looking down over a drop on one side and a long slope on the other. Close to Cockmount Hill, the Wall and its southern ditch, the vallum, are both visible, and the milefortlet at Cawfields is one of the best preserved on the line, a square enclosure with a gateway still standing. Nearby, an old quarry has filled with water to make a small, dark lake at the foot of the crags.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between the track to Cockmo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall between the track to Cockmo sits at 78 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fell End Roman temporary camp and section.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fell End Roman temporary camp and section write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fell End Roman temporary camp and section comes up about 80 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp. Next is back through Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Newcastle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Newcastle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 143 km.
Newcastle → Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp → Newcastle is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.