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.
281 km from Maryport to Maryport, about 4 h 01 of riding. The stops in between: Campfield, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's, Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp and Hadrian's Wall & vallum between field boun. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Most people think Hadrian's Wall stops at the Solway, but the Roman frontier did not simply end at the water's edge. Beyond Bowness a chain of milefortlets and towers ran on down the Cumbrian coast, watching the sea and the hills of Scotland across the firth, and Brownrigg North, tower 21b in the archaeologists' numbering, was one of them. There is little to see on the ground now, often just a gentle swelling in a field, but stand here and look west and you understand why it was put there: the Solway opens out, and on a clear day the Galloway hills and the Isle of Man line the horizon.
Read the complete Brownrigg North tower 21b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brownrigg North tower 21b is where the day begins. Next is Campfield.
Out on the Solway coast west of Carlisle, the land flattens into salt marsh, peat bog and wide tidal sands, and the sky takes over. Campfield Marsh, near Bowness-on-Solway, is a nature reserve run by the RSPB, a mix of salt marsh, wet grassland and raised bog, and in winter it fills with tens of thousands of geese, barnacle and pink-footed, arriving from the Arctic, along with waders that feed on the mud at low tide. Across the firth, the town of Annan and the Scottish hills are visible on a clear day.
Read the complete Campfield write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Campfield comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's.
East of Carlisle, the Eden river bends through a broad red-sandstone valley, and the line of Hadrian's Wall once ran across it. Little of the wall is visible here, because stone was reused for houses and field walls over the centuries, but the course is known, and the Vallum, the great ditch and mounds on the south side, leaves faint marks in the fields. The sector between Baron's Close and the nearby farms runs through gentle pasture, with hedgerows, oak trees and cattle, and the memory of soldiers is carried by the land itself.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's. 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.
Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp, about halfway. Next is Hadrian's Wall & vallum between field boun.
Hadrian's Wall runs for about seventy-three miles across the north of England, from the Solway Firth in the west to the Tyne in the east, built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian after his visit to Britain in 122 AD.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall & vallum between field boun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall & vallum between field boun sits at 137 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp comes up about 172 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 199 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's. Next is back through Campfield.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Campfield write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Campfield, late in the day. Next is Brownrigg North tower 21b.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brownrigg North tower 21b write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 281 km.
Brownrigg North tower 21b → Campfield is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Campfield → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's → Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall & vallum between field boun is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall & vallum between field boun → back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sunny Rigg 1 Roman temporary camp → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Baron's → back through Campfield is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Campfield → Brownrigg North tower 21b is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.