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.
111 km from Greenhead to Greenhead, about 1 h 41 of riding. It goes by way of Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet, Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp, Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra and Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H.
West of Haltwhistle, the land rises gently to the watershed between the Tyne and the Irthing, a broad, windy saddle of rough pasture known as the Tyne Gap, where rivers flow east to the North Sea and west to the Irish Sea. Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is one of several marching camps here, where Roman soldiers on the move dug a rectangular ditch and rampart for a night or a season, the earthworks now barely visible as low ridges in the grass. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet.
Midway along Hadrian's Wall, the land rises into a dramatic line of crags, and here the wall perches along the edge of the Whin Sill, a hard, dark rock that stands like a cliff over green pastures. Roman engineers followed the natural line of the escarpment, and from the top you can see for miles across moor and farmland, with the Cheviot hills blue in the north.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet comes up about 13 km into the recorded legs. Next is Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp.
Roman armies on campaign dug in every night. Wherever they halted, soldiers threw up a rectangular earth rampart and ditch around their tents, and on Walwick Fell, a short way west of the North Tyne, the faint outline of one of those temporary camps survives in the rough pasture. You need a keen eye and low sunlight to make it out, but its presence is a reminder that the Wall was built, maintained and defended by thousands of men who lived and worked in these hills, sometimes under canvas, sometimes in stone forts.
Read the complete Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 27 km into the recorded legs you reach Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra.
Just east of the point where the A68 crosses the line of Hadrian's Wall, at Portgate, the Romans had a gateway through the frontier for Dere Street, the great road running north from York into Scotland. Today the A68 follows much the same course, and the wall and its vallum run east and west across the fields here, sometimes visible as a bank or a ditch, sometimes buried under the Military Road. A little to the east, the fort of Halton Chesters, known to the Romans as Onnum, lies under the fields, and like the rest of the frontier, this stretch is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra, about halfway. Next is Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H.
Heddon-on-the-Wall announces its pedigree in its name, and just east of the village, on the slope down towards Newcastle, you find the longest surviving stretch of the Wall in the eastern sector. It is a section of broad wall, built to the original specification of about ten Roman feet thick, before the builders further west were told to save time and stone by making it narrower. Standing beside it, with fields falling away towards the Tyne, you get a strong sense of the scale of the project: this curtain once ran unbroken for eighty Roman miles.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H sits at 66 km, about halfway. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 85 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp. Next is back through Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet, late in the day. Next is Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 111 km.
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet → Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp → Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra → Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hadrian's Wall and vallum from East Town H → back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and vallum between Sunnybra → back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Walwick Fell Roman temporary camp → back through Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hadrian's Wall and associated features bet → Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.