Day 7 Housteds to Walwick

One’s destination is never a place, but always a new way of seeing things. – Henry Miller

I have found that there is always at least one thing on trek such as this that comes as unexpected yet, looking back, should have been expected. While I have not delved deeply into the history of the wall the fact is that one of the intents of the Wall was to separate the local population so that they couldn’t plot against the Romans. Thus, as you have seen in the pictures, the wall is, particularly in the central portion, remote to the point that for several nights we used taxis to pick us up from, or drop us off at, the wall. But this was never at the grade of the wall so each evening we had to climb down from the wall which meant each morning..,,yep we had to climb back up to the wall. Most folks reading this know how much I love walking uphill…not. Here’s a photo, taken by my friend Mike Salvino, of yours truly making an editorial comment regarding same:

Today we completed our reconnaissance of the central defenses of the Roman fortifications by visiting fort located near Housteds.

After Vindolanda this fort was a bit of a let down as it was not as intact thus not as interesting but it had a passport stamp so we stamped our books and moved on to another day of climbing

We reached another elevation pylon with more wind.

One decision that I made early on was to hike west to east due to my desire to hike with the wind at my back. The Wall was constructed from east to west so, that is typically the more popular route. Given that we have encountered 20+mph winds everyday since we embarked, I’m glad we are hiking with the wind at our backs. This has been confirmed by many hikers moving in the opposite direction having to hike into the wind and rain.

As the day progressed we finally started moving downhill encountering several ruins along the way