Great Britain Bike Tour: Part 3 (English Border to Hadrian's Wall)

August 07, 2023

A month on our bicycles, unsupported, spanning the entire isle of Great Britain. Three countries. Five major cities. Tens of thousands of feet of incline. 800ish miles. Literally millions of sheep.

If you missed the previous post, you can find Part 2 here.

In this post, I'll cover our journey from the English border to Hadrian's Wall. Did you think Hadrian's Wall was located on the border with England? You thought wrong! Enjoy a bunch of words and photos proving just how much land exists between those two things.

We resume our journey at the England-Scotland border: an unassuming field and a sign indicating the border from each direction along a quiet, narrow country lane. We stopped briefly for photos, and continued on our way toward Kielder Forest. We initially thought we'd have to ride on the side of a large but completely empty rural road, but after stopping by a scenic view of the nearby reservoir, we discovered that the national cycle route actually follows a dirt path along the side of the water. Excited at the notion of escaping the (nonexistent) cars and seeing more of the reservoir, we quickly rerouted and followed the path.

The Lakeside Way turned out to be a very pleasant experience. It largely keeps its distance from the water, so it is by no means flat -- I was very surprised at how much time I spent in my lowest gear during this section of the ride. But the views were nice, there wasn't much foot or cycle traffic out, we seized an opportunity for a snack and a half pint along the way, and we overall had a very pleasant time. A few sections of the path, routed through old forest, made for particularly zoomy downhills. I only have one criticism: the signage, while quaint and artsy, is very poor for actually routing yourself along the path.

We ended up at quite a few intersections where vague signage confused us, we stopped, debated, and then proceeded with our gut instinct; ultimately, we would have been better off without most of the signs.

After the reservoir, we took a brief but scenic ride over the dam, then routed onto a "closed" road. Knowing just how contextual that "closed" sign can be in the UK -- and having no option other than following the cycleway to the next town -- we proceeded along a very pleasant, barely maintained (but perfectly adequate for bikes) dirt path. I am happy to report that it was not closed at all, and we shortly found ourselves enjoying a coffee at Falstone Tearooms, a historic schoolhouse that has been wonderfully restored into a cute little cafe. I am also happy to report that we had a more pleasant experience than the students in the 1700s in this building, who looked downright grim in the informational photos along the wall.

After Falstone, the cycleway took us through my favorite series of valleys and ridges yet. There was a lot of up and a lot of down, but the roads were built such that our downhill speed frequently zoomed us up (most of) the subsequent uphill.

The day got sunnier and sunnier as we rode past many, many cows in the low valley.

Finally, we made our way up a very steep, very long, very treeless, very sheep-filled hill. The breeze picked up, and refreshed us enough to push on.

One memorable curve required us to navigate between a large number of cows who seemed especially interested in bicycles; I am happy to report that they were happy to observe us and did not request to ride the bicycles or otherwise interact with them directly.

We soon started passing a lot of significant stone walls. It was at this point that I realized that, despite reading a great deal about it in history books, I didn't actually know what Hadrian's Wall looks like beyond "ancient stone wall."

I was soon distracted by a lovely stretch of gravel road on cycleway 68 that I could easily have mistaken for a Vermont Category 4 road. At moments like this, I felt very fortunate that our bicycles both sport 2" tires!

Now at a pretty high altitude, and with considerably less up and downhill to deal with, we made our way past wall after wall. I took photos of several, thinking "if it is Hadrian's Wall, I don't want to not take a photo." But in the end, we passed one of the most scenic spots in the entire span of Hadrian's Wall, near Crag Lough and the Sycamore Gap (note: this is now the Sycamore Gap Stump). It was beautiful and fortunately very obviously Hadrian's Wall.

There were still a few hours left in the day, but we decided to stop at a convenient place to eat: Twice Brewed, which was awfully expensive but serviceable. We stopped just down the road at Winshields for camping, and I am happy to report that their field only had a few midges, the bathrooms were both clean and ample, and the kitchen could have saved us a lot of money if we wanted to feed ourselves.

Naturally, I biked over to Twice Brewed while Meg set up the tent for some cans of quality beer. We enjoyed some beverages while a fellow from Bristol, a lady from Birmingham, and a lady from Amsterdam (who speaks 7 languages!) tried to convince us that carrying bags on your back somehow makes sense when God clearly made bicycles to save us from that kind of pain.

We chatted the last of the daylight away, and fell asleep on a clear, chilly night with a great view of the stars and a front-row seat to the local Sheep Baa Symphony. Our highly nutritious breakfast the next day was well-earned.

When I get around to posting it, you can find Part 4 here.