10.12 miles 5h 2 m 178m ascent
Big Water of Fleet Viaduct-Skerrow Halt
The drive to the viaduct was a little slower than expected because we came to a “temporary obstruction, 15 minute delay” sign. I turned off the ignition, put on the brake and sorted out my rucksack. When I looked up the cars in front of me had gone. I can’t have been there too long, or the drivers behind were very patient because there was no tooting before I drove on.
Continue reading9.65 miles 4h 15m 161m ascent
Stroan Loch-Skerrow Halt-Little Water of Fleet-and back
It’s a year since I blogged a walk. The last few months can be put down to lockdown, and the last couple of weeks due to a swollen ankle. But I haven’t been idle. I’ve entered grandfather-hood, lost slippers to new puppy, visited Monino (one off the bucket-list) and skied in Bulgaria. I have embarked on a ship wearing a smile, and disembarked wearing a mask. My Tai Chi has been renewed, I’ve made toffee apples and designed a (simple) computer game. My “no more medical reading’ oath was been comprehensively broken with a recall from retirement, and my beard shaved off so I could use an FFP3. And last of all, as the last post shows, the ticks eventually got me.
Continue reading[Post-walk shennanigans]
I started the car, reversed out and headed home, my mind relaxing into auto-pilot mode. I passed a few walkers. We waved and shared smiles. In a film this would have been accompanied with relaxing music, soft focus and children playing in slow-motion – followed by a clang of cymbals and discordant notes. Reality slapped me awake. The gate was closed. And padlocked. Fuck!
Admittedly there had been a sign “Closed due to Coronavirus”. But there are similar signs at the Hills and those walks are clearly open. What’s more, a car had driven in immediately ahead of me and there were other cars in the car park when I arrived. I assumed that Forestry Commission had better things to do than take the signs down.
There was no way to drive around the gate. I reversed until I could turn round then drove to the north end of the Raider’s Road. A long eight miles to another padlocked gate. Fuck! (again). I had mobile reception so called the Forestry Commission. A recorded message told me the office was closed until Monday. Some folk who had parked on the free side of gate told me that the visitor centre at Clatteringshaws was open and suggested they might be able to help.
Plan B: I got Christy out of the car and we set off for the visitor’s centre, a walk turning into a jog. But then I had another thought. On my walk in 2011 I had crossed Black Water of Dee on Stroan Viaduct on the way out and at Barney water on the way back. I clearly remembered standing in the rain near there, and reading a sign explaining that this area has three times the average UK rainfall. What I didn’t remember was if I had crossed on a foot or vehicle bridge.
Plan C. Drive there and take a look.
I had reset the car’s mileage counter as I drove past the place where I had joined the road back then. It was six miles back. It looked usable. I ignored the “No unauthorised entry” sign.
Relief. A vehicle bridge. There was a gate beyond it but it was rusted and open. I hoped to find a track to the Queen’s Way and drive back past Clatteringshaws. I just hoped those entrances weren’t closed off. I had OS maps with me but this area is across two maps and there is no overlap. This made map reading difficult. I misread the map. I thought I was on a track a mile north of where I actually was. So as I drove I would come to junctions that were not those I expected. I decided to get an OS grid-reference to confirm where I was. FFS, it would only give me latitude and longitude and my brain couldn’t to cope with that. (I’d switched its mode when on holiday but couldn’t see how switch it back – I’ve since fixed the it). The car’s GPS just showed me in a roadless terra incognita but at least I could see my direction of travel without having to stop to use a compass.
But I couldn’t find a track to take me north. It was as if I was cursed to only move between south and west.
Eventually I came to an unexpected T-junction. and what’s more, a sign. Left was ‘Footpath to Mossdale’, which I presumed led to the railway I had walked along. Would the car get past the rocks at this end? It didn’t matter. It would almost certainly be gated at the Mossdale end and I couldn’t remember if the gate near Loch Skerrow was locked (I had gone through the pedestrians’ half gate). I turned right. If this had been the T-junction I thought most likely I would have been driving NW after the turn but somehow I was still heading SW. I decided to give up on escaping to the north. If I kept heading SW I might be able to find an exit down there.
A little further. Sudden recognition. I knew this track. But unfortunately I couldn’t place where it was. Then another junction. And a sign, “Loch Grannoch Lodge 2 miles”. I’ve been there. Somewhere near Loch Fleet I thought, but I couldn’t find it on the map. But I felt Loch Grannoch Lodge was not the way to go. I chose the other way.
Then, my oh my, in the distance was something I definitely knew, the Big Water of Fleet Viaduct. Now I knew where I was. There was at least one gate between me and the public road. I remembered walking past it on previous walks. Would it be locked?
No! It was open.
Joy! I drove past the ruin of Little Cullendoch and passed a car parked by the viaduct. Once past it I was on a single track. Still not definitely free but oh, so close. But as my wheels touched the B796 i breathed a sigh of relief. Free at last. I had escaped the trap.
I had driven eight or more miles of forestry tracks with my mind racing. Not only trying to work out where I was but considering what to do if I was truly locked in? Ring Lynn and hope she could find someone to pick me up? Could I can get to somewhere she could describe to someone else? And strangely more worrying was the fuel situation. I had set off with a third of a tank of petrol. It was plenty to get me to Stroan Loch and back. But all these extra miles? Would I find myself out of fuel in the middle of nowhere? An unwarranted worry really. I had plenty of miles in the tank but in the heat of the moment it was a worry nonetheless.
What can I learn from this? Well. Don’t panic is easy to say but once I found the tracks didn’t fit with what I expected, I should have stopped, eaten an apple, or anything that took a little time, then placed the maps so I could see the area in one visual field rather than looking at one map and then the other. Having the OS maps was a godsend. I’d have been screwed without them. I’ll look out for gates in future and I won’t park beyond lockable gates. And I’ll check that apps I might need work properly before setting out. And its worth repeating, don’t panic.
Quite a day.
The forest. My friend these many long days.
Happy, I wandered her green dappled ways.
My spirits she raised, my soul was reborn.
With a lightness of touch her gifts did transform.
Her offering I bore, unseen, and unknown.
A spirochaete favour. Its cover now blown.
(Non-luetic, I add. Before rumours spread!).
It’s Erythema migrans I’m sporting instead.
Two lesions at once, less rare than I knew.
Coursing my blood this spiral mildew?
To lift the enchantment, wash my blood clean
The four-ringéd tincture, the doxy-cycline?
Bacteriostatic, broad-spectrum, and cheap.
Saviour of many, makes spirochaetes weep.
But a substrate of enzymes whose power I induce
The weapon is weakened. For me it’s no use
If four rings won’t cut it, will three rings suffice?
The evidence is sketchy, but suggested by NICE…
Beta lactam it is then, I can walk in the light.
And Bacteriocidal, that’s good amiright?
In the darkness of night, I wake chilled to the bone
I didn’t expect it but it’s name is well known
But how to include it, in metre and verse?
Jarisch-Herxheimer, it makes poets curse.
The lesions are larger, but paler this morn,
My chills are now gone, to treatment I’m sworn,
Am-ox-icillin, now culled of its “y”,
And adjuvant therapies that appeal to my eye
Ardbeg, toffee apples, fresh fruit from the bowl
Vitamin D, ‘cos she said so, and avocado
Some yoghourt to balance the microbiome.
And coffee of course, while perusing a tome.
The forest. My friend these many long days.
Happy, I will wander her green dappled ways.
My spirits are raised, my soul is reborn.
For better or worse her gifts will transform.
M
We decided to take the Gondola up to Yastrebets and explore the Markudjik slopes. Over breakfast I squinted at my phone checking various maps. How would we get to the Gondola? It wasn’t really clear. But the piste map had a route marked as “ski slope connection”. We could reach it by skiing from the nearby chairlift. Why walk, in ski-boots, when we could ski there? It was a no brainer, in my estimation at least, though my ski-buddy would later claim her opinion had been ignored. Pah!
The six-man chairlift is close to the ski depot, but the journey is treacherous nonetheless. One must take care not to make eye contact with the hawkers outside the many eateries and under no circumstances should one speak to said fellows unless willing to hear the entire menu in three languages. Then one must avoid the temptation to buy hand-knitted socks from the matrons guarding their wares beside the path. With that done all that is left to face is ten metres of polished ice ending in a short frozen slope. Much easier than walking to the Gondola, which for all we knew was reached via an assault course.
So, we were whisked up the chairlift, skied off with only minor mishap, turned past the bitch (with her five pups), avoided the snowboarders who had chosen to lie down in groups wherever the path narrowed and along the gentle Martinovi-Baraki One. I picked up the necessary speed to carry me along the flat section leading to the Rotata and looked for the Ski slope connection. And there it was. And a sign. “To Gondola”. Even better, a caterpillar of pre-teens in yellow ski-school gilets had been led that way. So it couldn’t be too arduous.
Well. By the time I reached the Gondola the thought echoing in my mind was the Car Rental Desk scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I tried to fit my own experience into its framework. I would have preferred not to have shuffled my way along a ski connection where other people were happily skiing in the opposite direction or had to relinquish what momentum I had built up to avoid toboggans crossing my path. And I would have preferred not to ski through lumps of mud mixed with snow, churned up by a JCB and then frozen solid or crossing a busy fucking road before shuffling uphill through more churned and frozen mud. And I would have preferred not to have skied the final section on a surface more suited to ice hockey than skiing while dodging more toboggans. But was done. We wouldn’t do it again. Apparently someone had not wanted to do it in the first place.
The gondola itself was reached by climbing a set a steps, but that’s to be expected. What I did not expect was a gondola designed for Hobbits. Or a fellow rider who thought bringing his board into the cramped gondola was a good idea. But it is a 5km ride so by the time we reached the top I had calmed down. After all it could only get better.
The views were excellent, the snow just right and the slopes begging to be skied. I adjusted my boots, clicked on the skis and set off down to the Markudjik slopes, and down M1. A Goldilocks run. Not too easy, not too hard. Then I waited my turn for the drag lift.
Drag lifts are easy enough to use. Shuffle up to the start, grab the pole as it passes, and put the button between your legs. Keep your skis straight, stay upright, and keep in the tracks until you reach the top. If you’re a cool dude you might let your arms hang at your side, ski on one leg, or grab a selfie to share with your mates.
Markudjik One’s lift rises 900m and its quoted speed is 3 m/s. It is a little steep in places but nothing that looked particularly worrying. I’m not one of those cool dudes who rides lifts backwards or does yoga on the drag-lift. But I still approached the lift with a certain nonchalance, my thoughts on the next downhill ski. The ascent, as far as I was concerned, already done.
I shuffled up to the lift, took hold of the pole and was jerked out of my nonchalance. Before I had a chance to straighten my skis, I shot forward as if fired from a trebuchet. I got the button positioned but almost lost my footing as my skis diverged. But the drag soon slowed and I got myself sorted out. I breathed a sigh relief and took a look around letting my hand fall from the pole. The lift’s evil spirit noticed. Warp speed was enabled again and I found myself weaving from side to side on the mini-moguls that had replaced the even tracks beneath my feet. I thought I might be pulled over and hung on with both hands as I fought to control my balance.
I had just got into the rhythm of the lift when the drag’s vector shifted from horizontal to near vertical. My thighs gripped hard as the button fought to escape. I wished the button had been larger as I felt myself being lifted off the snow. Then there was more ferocious acceleration, but horizontal, thankfully. I looked ahead hoping the end might be near. But there was no end in sight.
I began to wonder what to do if I fell off. Or when I fell off. There was no nearby piste, only the tops of conifers sticking through rough snow. I would have to ski back down the steep narrow path of the drag lift, and, avoid the passengers it was throwing about. I decided to be positive and not consider failure. If I could just hang on for another couple of minutes.
Then came the first steep section. It approached at break neck speed then I was suddenly slowed as if the the lift was going into reverse. I thought my skis would slip backwards under me. But I managed to hold on for the ever so slow ascent. And I was ready for the next steep section.
Soon the end was in sight. Just a few metres to go. Then it was all over. I cast away the pole, skied off the drag, and waited. When my companion joined me I wondered if the experience had been the same for both of us. I forced a smile and with all the composure I could muster admitted “that wasn’t pleasant”. She thought so too. We agreed it should be a once in a lifetime experience.
After the next descent I skied on past the unpleasant M1 drag-lift, and past the sign “M2A, M2B, and M3 are not suitable for beginners”, heading for M2’s chairlift. I planned to take it, ski along to M1, down that and across to the chairlift again. And repeat until lunch.
From the chair lift there were great views of M2’s slopes. M2A is a black run and looked it. M2B is a red run, but with its wide gentle slope looked more like a blue run. I assumed it to be an “easy reds” that could just as easily have been a “slightly tricky blue”. It called to me like a Siren. And I answered its call.
Half an hour later, shaken and perturbed, I rode the same chair-lift, looking across at M2B and trying to fathom how I could have so misjudged its slope. I saw, as I had before, its gentle slope but now I noticed the trees beside it. A forest of trees all growing at an angle. But I had stood on that slope (and lain upon it) and could swear the trees were vertical. I looked up to the horizon and the penny dropped. A mountain ridge hid the true horizon. A false horizon had fooled my senses. Suddenly I saw its true nature.
Did I enjoy those wide empty gentle slopes? Obviously, the answer is no. But standing at the top of Markudjik 2B I still saw before me a wide gentle slope. I turned my skis down the slope and suddenly my perception shifted.
In my mind there might be a room. Its door is marked “Spatial awareness – authorised entry only”. In that room, at that time, stood a rather haughty chap. The type accustomed to being heard and having his opinions count. His badge read in gold lettering “VP” (Visual Perception). His posture was self-assured as I stood atop M2B. But as I turned my skis downhill, the door to that room from its hinges and in strode an older, much ignored fellow. His faded badge read Vestibulo-Somatogravic Perception. He struck Visual Perception a hard blow, knocking him from his feet. Then stepping over his prone adversary he took control, slamming a fist on a red warning button, and announcing “This slope is bloody steep”.
Bloody steep? Yes, but the piste was wide and for the most part empty. I could take my time and zig-zag down. But on one zag, about a third of the way down, I picked up just a little too much speed. The decelerating turn uphill came just a little too late and in the enforced sharp turn my skis collided. The uphill ski loosened and I came to a stop. No problem, take a breath, click my boot back in and carry on.
But that boot refused to click back in. After a great many attempts it was clear an alternative plan was needed. I could take off both skis and walk down to try again where it was less steep. No, it was too steep to walk down safely. I poked the snow beside the piste. It was too soft and deep. Perhaps, I could take off both skis, sit down and slide? No, it would be too difficult to hold two skis and two poles while sliding down. Drift down on the remaining ski then? I tried it and fell over. So the choice was made. I slid down twenty metres on my side, using the attached ski for speed control and the other, like a rudder, for positioning. It seemed to take forever. A further attempt at getting the ski on failed. One or two people skied past. None offering to help.
I aimed for a short section where the gradient eased and there my ski clicked on easily. I looked back up the slope at the flattened snow I had left behind. I wish now I had taken a photo but it just didn’t cross my mind at the time. Instead I took a breath, turned down the hill, and skied down the rest of the slope.
Another once in a lifetime experience.
Just to add to the strangeness of the day. As I paused a little further down the slope I saw what I thought was a pine cone coming up the slope and crossing my path. When it was much closer I saw it wasn’t a pine cone but a small creature. Later Googling suggested it might be a European Snow Vole.
I had planned to have Tripe Soup for lunch since it seemed to be a traditional Bulgarian dish on all menus, but by the time we stopped for lunch it was sold out and I had to make do with chicken soup. But rest assured I tried the tripe soup before the week was out.
Another once in a lifetime experience.
I heard someone say, surprised, many years ago,
“Did you hear that, he calls his dog Sunshine”
He was sent from the sun in a garment of gold,
With a spirit too bright for a world to withhold.
A gift to a home that was happy and loud,
Yet held a small shadow like mist on a shroud.
For a splinter of grief niggled deep in my heart,
‘Til he came with his light to make sorrow depart.I came from my work, feeling weary and worn,
To a house where the joy of the evening was born.
While eating my supper in silence alone,
My Lynn brought a question in such a sweet tone;
“Now wouldn’t our Leo be glad of a friend?”
I nodded my head, never seeing the end.A “yes” seemed the answer, both simple and kind,
With never a thought for what Lynn had in mind.“Then I’ll take the boys!” she replied with a flare,
And left me alone with my meal and the air.
Two hours had passed when a puppy of gold
Was tugging at sausages, fearless and bold.
With Leo he tussled and pulled at the line,
A spaniel-shaped sunbeam, a treasure of mine.
In the years of the boys, he was fire and play,
Through the haughs and the heather of Galloway’s day.
He would race through the bracken and leap through the grass,
And he’d mourn every moment we’d let the time pass.
If we rested a second, he’d sit and he’d bark,
For the trails were for treading, and leaving our mark.
He was never for “fetch” or the returning of balls,
But for chewing on bones in the warmth of the walls.
And as seasons rolled on, and the sixteen years drew,
The pace of the gallop was settled and few.
The muscles grew weary, the fire grew deep,
As he traded the mountain for stillness and sleep.He would rest his tired head on the shelf of a knee,
And his eyes were a mirror of all he could see.
Then the time came to leave and to travel once more,
To the Lady who sent him to wait at our door.
Across the bright threshold, his journey was run,
To the lap of the Goddess, the child of the sun.He is home in the glens where the stillness is sweet,
With the white heather soft ‘neath his golden-brown feet.
And Brid strokes his ears as the evening grows dim,
And she whispers the words that she saved just for him:
“You have tended the hearth and you’ve guarded the fold;
Now rest here in peace, my brave runner of gold.”
Go safely.
Slàn leat, Sunshine.
Footnotes
On my fiftieth birthday we had a few folk at the house, and I overheard them talking as I went to get some drinks. “He calls his dog ‘Sunshine’.”
This was the first of my poems about dogs. Or more honestly, the first to come close to completion. It has a strange title, I know, but I decided to keep it. This poem began life as a single line in another brief piece. I went in search of that original poem recently but could only find a collection of unfinished lines. I had thought it finished but think now that it was never finished. That poem was based on the goddesses of the hearth that my ancestors from the far west (the banks of the River Shannon) and the furthest east (Bengal). Somehow the stream of consciousness took me to Rachael and Eleanor, and Sweep as the goddess Brid’s dog sent to heal our hearth —and to fit the rhythm that was rendered as Cù Brìde.
This poem relates the tale of the day Sweep joined our family. As it says, I came home from work, late and tired. Lynn asked if I thought it would be nice for Leo to have a little friend to play with. As I do, I answered the question as literally posed, the subtext unheeded. Any answer other than “Yes” would have been churlish. A couple of hours later, Leo was playing with his new friend, each tugging at plastic sausages.
Leo was a friendly, playful dog but not one for hugs and cuddles. He preferred his own space. Sweep would sit by you, head in your lap, or your foot, or your hand. Lynn tells me it was Leo who taught Sweep to bring cushions.
I think his pedigree name was something like Black Kettle Sweep. I will see if we have it written down anywhere. It was something with “Sweepl in it anyway, hence his name. We couldn’t have names starting with B, D or P since I would not be able to call them.
He was a powerful dog. Looked as though he pumped iron. He pulled at his lead making walks on the lead a chore. The two dogs were not allowed upstairs at St Cuthbert’s but I got the impression that Leo sent Sweep up to explore, like an older brother sending a naive younger sibling to break the rules.
He woke one morning, apparent paralysed but slowly recovered; a reactive arthritis rather than disc prolapse. He was left with a slight limp that worsened as he aged. A friendly dog, he liked to bring a cushion but chewed slippers, and shredded his bedding if anxious. I only saw him angry one time. A large dog had a go at Leo, when Leo was old; Sweep lunged at a dog twice his size, hit it mid-flank and knocked it over. Leo had done the same for Sweep a few years before when Elaine’s dog had a go at Sweep.
When still well enough to walk the hills he roamed beside me on the moors of Shiel Hiil above Cornish Loch. We came to a lochan Sweep went along its left bank, I went along the right bank. Half way along he realised we were on opposite sides and instead of running back round, he jumped in and swam across. I thought I might have to wade in to fish him out but he made it across. He jumped into Loch Dee some years earlier and could not get out. Again I thought I would have to jump in to get him but managed to grab his collar during one of his attempts to get out. He did like water. I avoided walking along the Nith with him when the river was running high.u
I only remember him fetching a ball when he was very old. He died a few days before his sixteenth birthday. His photograph, running through bluebells, was on my wall at work.
7.19 miles 2h 55m 9m ascent
Anthorn to Bowness-on-Solway
An unco sough i’ the gloamin’
An’ a flaff o’ risin’ win’,
A glisk o’ stoundin’ waters
By the weirdly licht o’ the mune,
An’ the fell dark tide o’ Solway
Comes breengin’, whummlin’ in.
Dorothy Margaret Paulin
This final section of our Ravenglass to Bowness coastal walk was a short stroll around the Cardurnock ‘peninsula’ from Anthorn, where the River Wampool meets Moricambe Bay, along the coastal road to Bowness-on-Solway, completing Hadrian’s Coastal Route where our Hadrian’s Wall walk had begun.
We started a little east of Anthorn, with the the mudflats of Moricamb Bay beside us and the imposing radio masts ahead. The route was entirely on minor roads so, thankfully, did not involve the river crossing shown in this photograph.
Completing the route was undeniably a satisfying experience both because we had completed another long distance walk, but because we had also joined the two Hadrian walks. We were spared the usual excitements of difficult terrain or navigational challenges and did not need to venture on to mud-flats or marshes. The tides were not a problem and the only water we had to cope with had fallen from the sky. At the start it was raining heavily enough that I donned full waterproofs (and even put a coat on the dog), but the day was warm and when the rain lessened I was quick to shed the ‘not-so-breathable gore-tex.
Across the bay Grune Point was just visible. I found myself thinking that it should perhaps be Grüne Point, but set aside concerns of umlauts when I remembered the area’s grim history. During WW2 these waters came to be known as Hudson Bay because many of the Lockheed Hudson bombers based at RAF Silloth were lost here. The Hudsons tended to sink rapidly after ditching, possibly because their bomb bay doors buckled on impact and the treacherous local tides and shifting sands often made rescue impossible. Research by Ian Tyler shows that a staggering 1,833 men were lost due to their aircraft crashing in the Solway during ww2. At low tide it is still possible to see the remains of some of these aircraft.
There is not much to Anthorn village itself. Even the old chapel has been taken over by a private house. There are older buildings many looking to have farming origins, a couple with water pumps (defunct, I presume) in their yards, but many of the houses look to be ex-military. Before the radio station was here, Anthorn had an airfield operated by the Fleet Air Arm as HMS Nuthatch. Its name in line with a tradition of naming RNAS air stations after birds – e.g. RNAS Prestwick is HMS Gannet, and some further examples can be found here). I must admit that when I looked at the list I had not realised some of them were birds. I am wiser now. The old runways and taxiways of the airfield are still visible though they are slowly losing their battle with nature. A taxiway beside the road were I paused to remove waterproofs was covered with flowering stonecrop.
Other legacies of the military airfield are several buildings on the airfield’s perimeter. We speculated on their purpose but could not come up with any convincing possibilities. Most are now repurposed into some sort of agricultural use. A little research on returning home has revealed these to be WW2 era “shooting-in butts” which were used to test aircraft mounted machine-guns.
The area is dominated now by the 13 huge radio masts of the Anthorn Radio Station. Its LF transmitters broadcast the National Physical Laboratory’s time signal for the U.K. (the ‘pips’) and support eLORAN navigation systems, while VLF which can penetrate seawater is used for communication with submerged submarines. These ‘very low frequencies’ are ‘long-wave’, so I wonder whether the old tale of our nuclear submarines being able to tell if the country has been destroyed by listening for BBC Radio 4 (on long wave) might have a grain of truth. You might be able to see from the photographs that the tops of the 227m masts were lost in the clouds as we walked by.
This photograph shows the minor road we were walking along. Despite the appearance there were quite a few cars along the way. The beech tree on the right had a huge trunk and must be several hundred years old.
Once we reached the northern part of the peninsula there were larger stretches of salt marsh between us and the Solway mudflats. I still find it strange to think that Edward I’s invading armies would have crossed into Scotland across the Solway. Perhaps the water channels were different then.
As we approached what remains of the railway viaduct we noticed a strange cloud over Annan I think. I only had my wet weather camera which does not have any optical telephoto so the photographs are not especially clear. Presumably it was from a fire but it was shaped like a tornado. I looked about at the nearby terrain and wondered where we might shelter if it was. There was no shelter so I think we would be done for.
The Solway Rail Viaduct was in use between 1869 and 1915, carrying iron ore from the mines of West Cumberland to foundries in Lanark and Ayrshire. Falling rail traffic forced its closure in 1915 and the viaduct was demolished in 1935. There had been proposals to convert it into a road bridge, but by that time the structure was in poor repair. It is interesting to think how such a road might have altered the areas on both sides of the Solway. The only memorial to the viaduct was this bench back in Anthorn village.
The Road sign where we had begun our Hadrian’s Wall walk in 2017 marked the end of our 2019 Hadrian’s Coastal walk. It seemed fitting to celebrate the accomplishment with a photo.
Overview of Hadrian’s Coastal Route
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