Cawfield quarry, Northumberland

I was rather surprised when Bea (one of the walk leaders for today) asked for my surname. This was due to the excess number of Hazels joining the 8 mile hike. Of the dozen or so names that she had on her list, three of us shared my name. What is more, I soon found out that the second Hazel to arrive at the meeting point spent her childhood only a couple of miles from me in my home town. As things turned out, the third Hazel couldn't make the walk today. However, I did meet her yesterday, and there is a chance that she will be back out again on tomorrow's walk.

It was a bit chillier in the great Northumbrian outdoors today, and we missed our new friends from yesterday, but we still had a great time. We walked from the Sill up the road to Hadrian's wall at Steel Rigg, turned westwards and followed the wall to the trig point, continued a little further along the route of the wall, then came down into the fields and headed north for a while. Then we looped around to head south once more, following the route of the Cawburn. Back at the wall we looked at Milecastle 42, and then the flooded Cawfield quarry (blipped). The last couple of miles took us down through the bluebell woods along the Haltwhistle burn. Here we saw relics of industrial activity of the last two centuries.  Along the way Abigail (the main walk leader) told us a lot about the features that we passed, and Mr hazelh and I both came back to Haltwhistle with a much greater appreciation of the Roman archaeology, industrial history, and geology of the area.

This evening we drove back up to the Military Road for supper at the Milecastle Inn. When we first entered the bar we noticed a man who was wearing a Cult T shirt for the tour at which Mr hazelh and I caught our first ever bout of flu in 1989. We had a fun chat with him and his wife, reminiscing about the tour: he saw it at Whitley Bay, and we at the NEC. Mr hazelh then showed off his own T shirt, proudly sporting the Bauhaus logo. What a couple of 1980s relics this pair of old men made!

Exercise today: walking (~24k steps).