If there are any pleasures to be found in a Carlisle city centre hotel then breakfast was one. Normally it crosses your mind that having the equivalent of a ‘heart attack on a plate’ is bad despite your saintly consumption of cereal with skimmed milk as a starter.  However on a cycling ride you can console yourself that you’ll probably burn it all off later. On seeing the selection of cereals John and I reminisced on our school days. The cereals we got always came in these little Kellogg boxes and I can well remember that it was a ‘red letter day’ if you managed to get Coco Pops. (If you think about products that don’t change over decades then many foodstuffs are in this category.)

We emerged into the Carlisle rush hour from our hotel. but soon dived off the main road onto cycle paths. This is usually a traffic free experience but the path doubled up as a pedestrian path knee deep in school children ambling along, with their heads buried in their mobiles, to school. Despite the temptation to lay waste these barely sentient obstacles I dinged away on my bell to warn of our presence. As we nearly cleared the throngs of shuffling teenagers one bright specimen piped up to our backs that “bikes aren’t allowed on these paths!” Clearly the painting of large white bicycles on the path might have provided a clue I thought.

As we cleared the city we were into the countryside. The traffic was light but the roads had started to go up and we climbed up several country lanes to arrive in Brampton. This market town seemed to be teeming. A coffee break ensued along with the surreptitious consumption of the remaining chocolate covered custard creams after the coffee had been delivered to our table. John was delegated with the procurement of sandwiches and I with crisps. John sadly failed as my cheese and tomato sandwich turned out to be the saddest abuse of sliced white bread, tomato and cheese I had experienced in many years. I absorbed the blow. Unluckily, for them, two American tourists from Portland, Oregon sat next to us at the cafe and establishing their home I felt compelled to tell them about the legendary Bob Sanders pedalling across the USA. Weirdly this conversation took place as a passing dog vomited in front of them. How they’ll treasure these encounters…

Anyway, refreshed we pedalled on into the real wilds and found that the road did start to climb seriously upwards. However as we started to live on the granny gears we stopped at Lanercost Priory. This is a delightful site with a Priory ruin and church. Inevitably Henry VIII shut the priory and sold off the building to a rich pal. What remains is still interesting.

Shortly after leaving we came across the Wall: our first actual sighting of the remnants. The first 30 miles was always earth, turf and timber.

Sadly, It seems that it is only the last 150 years or so that the Wall has been properly respected and preserved. Over the centuries the stone in the Wall was taken for many local uses and I imagine there will be most farms that have a building or wall that was built from this Roman largesse. The Wall took six years to build and at one time 15,000 men worked on it. The stone mainly came from local quarries. The Wall was 3 metres thick and 4.2 metres high. Along the Wall were 80 milecastles that housed soldiers and gateways for the movement of people and livestock. (A Roman mile was slightly less than the mile we know.)

After the climb out of Banks we plateaued and came to rest at Birdoswald Fort. This was the most westerly Fort. To be frank the most impressive feature was the set of graphics and models inside the Visitor Centre. The other interesting thing about the remains was the high location and its imperious views of the surrounding countryside. On asking the staff why it was called Birdoswald they admitted they or no one else knew? A strong suspicion is that this name was latterly given to the Fort and it was called Banna before this. 

Some serious climbing was necessary to get to the Roman Army Museum. The last hill before we got there was steep enough to be a ski jump slope and before my heart leapt out of my chest I dismounted and pushed before resuming the ascent. This museum goes into the life of Emperor Hadrian and covers the life of the troops who were deployed on the Wall and how they went about their training and responsibilities.

After all this culture it was time to descend into Haltwhistle where we were billeted in a pub on the main drag. In discussing dinner options with the Receptionist she said that Tuesday was tapas night across the road at a hotel. That sounded brilliant and after a shower and a pint in the fading sunshine at a nearby pub we further toasted our day with a glass of vino over our patatas bravas, chorizo and other plates.