Sam's Walk
Steel Rigg, Gilsland, Birdoswald and Walton
Hi Sam. We are back at our rooms this evening and absolutely exhausted after a long walk in the sun. Today we passed through 600 miles of walking since Jan 4th and completed 64 miles in 4 days of Hadrian's Wall and your walk. I never thought I would say this but it was easier in the rain and cloud of yesterday than the walking we did today. But we thought of you as we started out and once again were treated to some wonderful scenery and history along the way.
After a great British breakfast at Val's place on Gibb's Farm where Val looked after us to perfection she then took us to our start point at Steel Rigg where we finished yesterday. We had met Nigel from Wiltshire over breakfast and he joined us to the start point. Nigel impressed Rob with his story of carrying two Peugot bicycles to the top of Kilimanjaro and taking a photograph at the top as an ad for Peugot. Impressive as Rob is going up at the end of the year without a bicycle and thinks that will be tough enough.
The scenery is stunning along the way and the walking is challenging with lots of ups and downs. Only a few hundred feet up and a few hundred feet down but when you do twenty of these you eventually notice tendons tightening and tiredness building. We spent today looking at wall, or lying on it, standing in turrets or walking along the vallum which is a trench to the south of the wall. We talked about Hadrian and the sort of emperor he was. Hadrian followed Trajan who had defeated the Dacians, was expansionist and aggressive in his attempts to extend east and had already built forts in the North of England. Hadrian was a peaceful emperor who was interested in everything Greek (he said everything worth writing had already been written in Greek), loved philosophy and had many attempts to establish the rights of men and women. He was the first emperor to legislate that women could not be forced in to marriage and could have a say in who they marry. He banished some of his executive who he thought were cruel to their slaves. 
There is a story that one person released from prison who had tried to kill him was pardoned and became one of Hadrians most loyal servants. Forward looking about land he proposed a rule that if land owned by someone were not developed for five years then whoever started to develop it would become the owner of the land. He wanted factions to work together through constructive dialogue and worked hard to protect the empire as it existed at the time. Hence the wall from Carlisle to Newcastle. It is amazing to think of the impact he had back in Rome across all the lands and to get legions of soldiers to carry massive rocks up great hills and craggs to build his wall.
We hit 600 miles at Samson Inn in Gilsland. This fits well with Rob's photographic record of the decline of the English pub. Us and four other customers and looking like a very difficult way to make a living it will probably not last many more years. We cheer this milestone and reflect on the many miles of interest, fun and real challenge we have already experienced. Only 400 more to go until we have walked 1000!Rob and Viv have done well today and this was a tough days walking.
At Walton opposite the Centurian Arms, a pub now no longer a pub, we meet Duvain and his nephew Lee from North Wales near Prestatyn. They walked 13 hours yesterday with tent and gear on back and will do the whole walk in one day less than us. Carrying your own home as you go this is really impressive. Well done guys.
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