Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

Walk & Event Reports

B Walk Sunday 27th April 2014

Housesteads to Greenhead

10 Miles Grade 3

Leader: Alan Dobson

Report & Photos by Alan Dobson

Eight of us got off the bus at Housesteads , the weather was cloudy skies and light rain so it was on with our waterproofs , infact most of the day we encountered the same conditions however it did clear up towards the end of the walk and at least we had the easterly wind behind us . We walked up to the fort and then to the wall path . it was fairly quiet for a Sunday probably due to the weather.

We walked through a woody area then encountered one of the many up and downs which follow the contours of the land , there were at least nine of these on this walk which seemed to get longer and steeper so we had to take care especially as these were wet , which made this B walk one of the more difficult ones however each one revealed a different view and landscape.The first notable landscape was crag Lough steep crags overlooking the lake where swans were nesting on the shore and then onto Sycamore gap where everyone posed under that famous tree. We were now encountering many people walking in the opposite direction to us with numbers on - was this a prison breakout , no there were people of all ages doing a sponsored walk for the British heart foundation from Cawfield crags to Chollorford . We passed several turrets on the wall and milecastle 42 to arrive at Whinshields car park where there were toilets and we stopped for lunch sheltering under the trees avoiding the nettles or sitting on the pic-nic benches provided This point was slightly over half way and the next part of the walk took us over green pastures where horses and young lambs were abundant and later back onto the wall path, where the views became better as the weather started to clear out and yes it stopped raining , a mixture of green fields brown fell land and out lying farms and then onto the crags of Walltown quarry and eventually to Walltown café where the assistant thought she was getting some late business but we decided to walk down into greenhead over green fields of which one was covered in manure from the farmer recently spreading muck which got into the soles of our boots before we hit the road path cleaned off our boots and ended the walk in the coffee shop in Greenhead

Alan