Finn and Susan’s big adventure – Day 7 – Saturday 22 May 2010 – Greenhead to Once Brewed – 7 miles

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that this week’s walks do not appear to be sequential – this is a major breakthrough for me – I’m trying to train myself to be less OCD!

The reason for today’s change of plan lay with the boys again – as they had a day off today in Richmond and I quite fancied the idea of finishing early to meet them – their antics have kept me entertained all week!

Finn and I were walking just before eight – I would have liked to get there earlier but the campsite nazis at Haltwhistle wouldn’t let me get off the site until gone seven. I rang the boys early on to say I had started and was told that Tristan was still in bed and Steve was making the tea. This for some reason brought the Morecambe and Wise image flooding back so I set off with a chuckle.

My first sight of Hadrians Wall was really exciting – much more so than I thought it would be. The Pennine Way on this stretch combines with the Hadrians Wall National Trail – and although I didn’t meet any other Pennine Wayers today, I met lots of Hadrians Wallers!

It’s been a really hot day – a real scorcher and Finn seemed to be having a lot of lay downs – due to the heat I assumed. I positively encouraged him to swim in the two lakes that we passed – old quarries which have been turned into picnic sites by the National Park Authority. It was only a while later when we were back on the wall ridge again, that I noticed he was also limping and not putting all his weight on his back left leg. Luckily, we only had a mile to go now to get the bus back to our car at Greenhead.

Now, while I’m quite stubborn and would possibly carry on with an injury, there’s no way I’m putting Finn through that, so a day off for tomorrow was called. (This day off actually turned out to be a bonus as, when I met up with the boys at Richmond, Steve was too injured to walk again and had no way of getting to the next B&B because of the lack of Sunday public transport. I’ve really enjoyed doing support for Tris and Steve this week – I’ve felt quite useful for a change!)

So, Finn and I had a quick ice cream at the National Park Authority visitor centre before catching the AD122 bus back to Greenhead – lovely to see the bus company has a fantastic sense of humour!