30th September 03

At about 2.30am we are awakened by Reggie music from an adjoining room, Brian puts his good ear to the pillow and is oblivious of anything I say, so he obviously cannot hear the music like I can as I am hard of hearing in both ears but not that deaf that I cannot hear this dreadful music. It is a radio that is playing as I can hear the intro’s, I am now tapping my feet to the music, what chance do I stand of getting to sleep. It eventually goes off after about 2 hours and the silence is deafening.

When we tell the Manager in the morning he tells us that he had instructed the cleaners to switch off the radio alarms as some people seem to think that setting the alarm at some unearthly time would be a good prank. How pathetic.

We leave at 9.15am on our final push to the finish and I am looking forward to it as I am familiar with the area, or should I say I was familiar with the area some 40 years ago and the area has undergone extensive rebuilding so I expect to find the route mostly unrecognisable in the form that I knew it. As we walk along Scotswood Road where I worked for 12 years, it is impossible to pick out any building that stood in my working days. Most companies, like Vickers where I worked have demolished all their buildings and built new modern factories, as have Mitchel Bearings and Aveling Barford. We make our way through a modern Industrial Estate and onto a wide cycleway/walkway alongside the river. My memories of the river at this point were of rats, condoms, raw sewage and stench, all now gone but replaced by the obligatory supermarket trolley. All sewage is now treated and fishing is now carried out on the banks of the Tyne, a sport that would be unthinkable 40 years ago, giving an indication of the improvement in the quality of the water. We were so surprised to see a sign at Walker saying `No Fishing’.

Fig 6– Approaching the 7  Bridges of the Tyne 

The miles seemed to fly past as we approached the seven Tyne bridges, first the ‘new’ Redheugh Road Bridge, then the King Edward Railway Bridge, the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, the High Level Bridge a road bridge with a railway above, then the Swing Bridge and the Tyne Bridge, both road bridges and finally the dramatic Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian bridge which we reached by 11.30am. As the Millennium Bridge was opening at 12.05pm we walked over it and marvelled at the very modern design and the engineering expertise that had gone into the construction before returning to the Newcastle side to watch it open. The thing that strikes me every time I see the bridge is the shear simplicity and functionality of the design, absolute brilliance. The pedestrian walkway, which is all the bridge is, comprises a 3 meter wide path, curved in 2 planes giving a very small incline up to the centre, this gives the bridge the ability to allow river traffic through when the bridge is rotated about 30 degrees, on horizontal bearings each side.

Figure 7 – Brian & I at the Millennium Bridge

 Whereas the Tyne Bridge has always been the symbol of Tyneside to my generation, I think that the younger generation will consider the Millennium Bridge as being their symbol of Tyneside, and rightly so. It does appear an anomaly that it is called the Gateshead Millennium Bridge whereas it spans between Gateshead and Newcastle, maybe Gateshead Council put more money into the project.

We leave the splendour of the regenerated quayside and head east following the cycleway/pathway through Byker, St Anthony and Walker. The cycleway continues on to Tynemouth which is the end of the Coast 2 Coast cycle way. Our walk ends at Wallsend some 5 miles from the bridges, and goes through a tree lined route, which could be beautiful if it was not for the graffiti, broken glass, vandalism, discarded beer cans and the usual throw away’s that the youth of today have no further use for. Do these people discard litter in their own homes like they do in the street?

Figure 8 – Only 1 mile to go, but that is how I felt.

The Hadrians Wall Walk is signposted using the symbol of an acorn, but it is on the C2C (Coast to Coast) cycle path that the acorn becomes less frequent so we carry on following the signs for the C2C, knowing we are on the right path as we are walking alongside the river. We see ahead of us what can only be described as an ultra modern lookout tower, which we thought of at the time as being a lookout for the Harbourmaster; we also see a section of Roman Wall and feel that Segerdunum the Roman Fort at the end of the walk is just around the corner.

Fig 9  – The end of the Roman Wall, but what is that in the background?

Brian kept saying throughout the walk that we should stop when our cap floats. Another 15 minutes brings us to a traffic roundabout with a sign indicating that Segerdunum, which is the end of the walk, is back where we have come from, after some *!$%* and “*#~*, we follow the road back and arrive at that modern observation tower called Segerdunum. After walking 84 miles seeing the remains of Milecastles and Turrets with pictures depicting what these places would have looked like, wouldn’t it have been a marvellous opportunity to build these at Segerdunum instead of an ultra modern observation tower.  It’s built now so we go in and leave our haversacks at reception, we are direct to the 3rd floor where the café located and take the lift, but no, the lift numbers are not in Roman numerals and arriving at the counter, no one in sight, shout shop, whereupon an assistant says sorry we have just closed. Can you believe it, I say we have walked 84 miles and you cannot even offer us a cup of tea, she relents and gives us complimentary teas, she is not to blame as the shop closes at 2.00pm, do the Romans have siesta at 2.00pm? we are amazed.  We sat in the observation tower and reflected on our achievement. Our triumph has been overcoming the challenge of the physical effort against the elements, our bodies reacted early on in the walk, in various ways, but seemed to disappear as the walk progressed, in fact I don’t recollect much talk of tiredness on the final day. Brian again reminded me that I was doing this for pleasure and at the end I could for the first time see some pleasure and a great sense of achievement.

After taking the obligatory photographs we boarded the Metro for Newcastle, Brian was getting the train for York and then Harrogate and I was getting the train to Carlisle and then Penrith. My journey was through much of the country that we had walked and many parts were recognisable. The journey from Newcastle to Carlisle took 1½ hours by train, this brings into perspective the actual distance walked, having taken 5 days for the same journey.

Brian and I went our separate ways at Newcastle Central Station, with the thought that we may do the Cleveland Way next year (109 miles), but that is another day and another year.

p.s. My first roll of film did not develop.

I have just read an article by Ranulph Fiennes, aged 59, the explorer, who has just run 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days, an incredible achievement. In it he says that the enjoyment is not necessarily the actual event but the planning of it beforehand and reflecting on it afterwards, I can wholeheartedly concur with those thoughts as I got great pleasure from planning the trip and have very much enjoyed reliving the experiences, although I did enjoy a little, the bit in the middle.

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