Day 8 of the Hadrian's wall walk, continued

A lamb!


It was around this point when the trail entered a cow pasture. Until this point the trail had either ran through sheep pastures, or the cows we saw where far from us at the other end of the pasture. But in this pasture the cows were surprisingly close.

Jessamy and I were half way through the field when I happened to see movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked, and saw four cows, at something approximating full gallop, running towards us. My fight or flight instinct kicked in and I promptly started running, yelling "oh my god they're running towards us", and simultaneously scanning my surroundings for an exit or a place along the outer stone wall where I could perhaps leap over the wall and thus into safety. About the time I finished saying "us" I looked back at the cows and noticed they were standing still, at a safe and not too scary distance. I walked back the 20 or so feet to where I left Jessamy standing during my brief run to "safety". Apparently she had been yelling at me while I was running to "stand still" as cows have "prey vision" and can only see you if you're running. Learn something new everyday.

Stopped for lunch at Errington Arms. I had a chicken and mushroom pie, with a puff pastry on top (not sweet) with a half pint of Cumberland Ale. Jessamy had a burger (I think we're lacking in some essential nutrients as we've been craving meat lately and we usually aren't big meateaters) and some beer I can't remember the name of. My pie ok, the puff pastry was wonderful! One of us will really have to work on our baking skills, I'd really love to have freshly baked foods on a regular basis. My dish had three kinds of side vegetables and potatoes, so we left completely stuffed.

We crossed another cow pasture and once again saw cows start running towards us. In a feat of logic over emotion because I knew the ditch in between us and them would slow them down considerably I told Jessamy to get a picture of them running towards us. Here they are, having just stopped running towards us.

Here is the site of the Battle of Heavenfield, where one of the kings of Northumbria battled Celts. Or something.

The wall! And me looking gnomeish

The River Tyne. Yup, same river that we've seen throughout our walks. Walked through the small town of Chollerford, and ended up at Chesters Roman Fort an hour before the bus was to arrive! So we sat at some park benches in the parking lot. As we almost missed the bus out that morning since it arrived early we made sure to walk towards the stop 10 minutes early. As we left the parking lot we saw the van! If it wasn't for the fact that people were already waiting for it we would have missed our ride home. But we caught it and arrived home very tired from the walk.