Easter Monday

Well the weather didn't let us down - another nice day on Hadrian's Wall.

I took a walk from Gilsland to Greenhead, up over Temple Mount, down past Barron House Farm, Thirlwall Castle (there's a 'farmhouse tea' at the farm next to the Castle) and on to Greenhead.

The Old Forge Cafe is now fully open so it was the perfect excuse to stop for coffee and carrot cake. I know I mentioned diet yesterday but that carrot cake leapt out at me screaming 'eat me, eat me', so I did.

We walked back along the Hadrian's Wall Path, there are a number of stiles along the way and whoever set them up must have 6ft long legs because the bottom step on all of them is too high especially if like me you have knees that no longer bend very well!

Come this evening and it looked to be shaping up for a nice sunset so once again it was on with the walking boots and away we go.

Destination this evening was Steel Rigg, I wanted to go up onto Peel Crags so that if there was any good colour in the sky I would have the option to shoot looking east or west. They're repairing the dry stone walls on top of the Crags and I have to say they're making a first class job of it, hope they (The stones not the drystone wallers :)) can withstand those Galloway cows rubbing against them. One morning last year I was out for a sunrise when the cows were on top of the crag and it was a constant clattering of stones being loosened.

The footpaths alongside the Wall are really worn already this year, goodness knows how they'll look in a few months time. With walkers all year round the paths don't have a chance to recover and I know most of them were reseeded this last autumn.

Got to the bit of turf Wall (NY759677) and set up the camera, little bit of colour in the sky but there's not yet any real warmth in the sunset so I took a few shots and then packed up. Still the hard climb up and down Peel Crags will have helped burn off some of those calories I hope.

Catch you later.