Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth and The English Lake District

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth

   The Solway Firth is a strange piece of sea. It is wide and shallow and has some of the biggest tidal ranges in Britain, and at low water it empties into a landscape of sand, mud and channels where the tide can return faster than a walker can run. On its northern shore, the Scottish side, the land around Eastriggs and Annan is flat salt marsh and farmland, backed by low green hills, and across the water you can see the Cumbrian fells rising bluish and far off. The Roman frontier ended on the other side, at Bowness, but the Romans watched this shore too, and the wall's western run along the English edge is the reason the area is on the heritage map.

   Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth is where the day begins. Next is Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp.

2. 2. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is The English Lake District.

3. 3. The English Lake District

   Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud round here, and anybody who has ridden the Lake District on a wet bank holiday will understand the appeal of being lonely. The English Lake District, listed by UNESCO in 2017 as a cultural landscape, is a compact knot of mountains, lakes and valleys in Cumbria, shaped by glaciers and then by centuries of sheep farming, slate quarrying and, from the late eighteenth century, by poets, painters and tourists who came looking for the sublime.

   Read the complete The English Lake District write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 160 km into the recorded legs you reach The English Lake District. Next is back through Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp.

4. 4. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Sunny Rigg 2 Roman temporary camp, late in the day. Next is Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth.

5. 5. Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Hadrian's Wall between Apple Garth. That is the ride.