Climbing the steep ridge at Cuddy's Crags, with the loch in the background
©photo courtesy Peter Chrisp

Friday August 27. To Corbridge

By train from Newcastle to Corbridge. Chris and Judy are serious walkers, with big rucksacks, wearing their walking boots. We're still dressed as townies, carrying our new boots in our small borrowed packs. We've never been on a walking holiday.

Corbridge is a pretty stone village approached by a lovely 18th century bridge over the Tyne. We are staying at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, recommended by Robin Birley in his 1972 guide to Hadrian's Wall: "If the visitor is not familiar with local customs and speech, he would do well to catch an early lunch at the Wheatsheaf Hotel."

The hotel carpark walls have what look like Roman statues built into niches - a crude head and a goddess holding a horn of plenty.

Corbridge has a wonderful Roman fort, with large granaries, workshops, and well preserved streets. In the modern museum, we find a set of Roman armour, and a nice tomb carving of a baby girl, called Vellibia, playing with a ball.

Saturday August 28. Chesters, Housesteads and Vindolanda

We catch the bus to Hexham, through leafy scenery, marred only by smoke rising from an MDF factory. Hexham is much bigger than Corbridge and better placed for the wall, but it's not as pretty. Here we catch the special Hadrian's Wall bus which takes us to Chesters, a small cavalry fort excavated by the 19th century antiquarian, John Clayton. The fort has a beautiful location by the North Tyne River, where we stop to watch a man fly-fishing.

We get our first sight of the wall itself here, a short stretch of stone blocks sticking out of the fort's east gate. We look around the Roman bath-house, with its changing room with niches (for statues or towels?). John Clayton's museum, a small Victorian building packed with sculptures, is a delight. An American coach party arrives and swiftly departs.

We catch another Hadrian's Wall bus to Housesteads. A guide on board passes round a Roman helmet for us all to wear. Passing Carrowburgh, he tells us about the excavation of Coventina's Well, a shrine to a water goddess there. There's an old man living nearby who remembers as a child being given handfuls of Roman coins here. He used them as skimming stones in the loch.

Housesteads Roman fort is a huge site on a hillside with lovely views. But it's very crowded and somehow doesn't have the magic of Chesters. After exploring the fort, with its famous latrines, we begin our first proper wall walk, heading west to Steel Rigg. Every third of a mile we pass a turret, and every mile a milecastle. At Cuddy's Crags, the wall follows the top of a steep ridge. There are wonderful views down to a dark loch, with two white swans afloat. I find my walking boots hot and uncomfortable, and Lisa gets blisters.

After a couple of pints in the Twice Brewed Inn, we visit Vindolanda Roman Fort, which is Robin Birley territory (there's a big framed photograph of him welcoming the Queen). The museum has hundreds of Roman leather shoes and sandals. Outside, archaeologists are digging up the Roman rubbish dump.

We take the bus back to Corbridge, where we spend the evening in the Black Bull pub. Chris tells us his earliest memory. He recalls being a small child, in a push chair, watching trains pass while his grandfather fed him cheese biscuits from a bag.  Judy: "All Chris's childhood memories involve this bag of cheese biscuits."

Sunday 29 August. Haltwhistle to Steel Rigg

We catch the train from Corbridge to our next base, Haltwhistle, which claims to be the ''centre of Britain'', and has a map on the main street to prove it. Here we're staying in a farm guest house, decorated as a shrine to horses and fox hunting. Our room has "his and her washbasins", an oval turquoise corner bath with gold and onyx taps, and a bidet. Chris and Judy have only a shower.

After unpacking we set off on the day's walk, from Great Chesters east to Steel Rigg.

The Roman fort at Great Chesters is in the middle of a working farm and horses are wandering all over the place. There's an altar standing by the fort's south east gate (the only one left on the wall itself rather than in a museum). It's great to walk around a site that hasn't been managed or tarted up. In Roman times, it was home to Spanish infantrymen.

I've given up on my boots for now and am wearing sandals, and Lisa's in trainers. A good day's walking, though it clouds over and eventually starts raining.

The Hadrian's Wall bus takes us back to the guest house, for baths in the exotic tub. Then we walk through fields to the Milecastle Inn, where we drink Northumberland Castle bitter and eat curries. A local tells us about some standing stones nearby, called the mare and the foal, which are ignored by everyone because they aren't Roman. He hasn't been to Housesteads since he was a kid, which amazes southerners: "They say, 'Yer must gan up there all the time.' I say, 'No man!" He tells us about about Kevin Costner coming here to film Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves.

Monday August 30. Great Chesters to Birdoswald

The weather looks ominous, so we're back in our walking boots today, despite the fact that Lisa's big toe has now gone black. This is our longest walk of all, from Great Chesters Fort heading west into a stiff wind to Birdoswald.

Past Great Chesters we find a Roman milestone, with must have been brought here from the Roman road below, and is now serving as a farm gatepost.

The biggest challenge is climbing the "Nine Nicks", a series of steep hills, with rain driving into our faces. Here, Lisa gets a spontaneous nosebleed.

We shelter for a while in the Roman Army museum at Carvoran, and have tea and scones in the cafe. Another eccentric museum filled with dioramas and reconstructions.

We walk on past the "Gap", the watershed of England. Previously, all streams flowed east into the Tyne. From now on they flow west to the Irthing. We've left Northumbria and are now in Cumbria.

After crossing the Irthing, we reach Birdoswald Roman Fort, run by English Heritage. Only a small part has been excavated. Wooden posts show how the granaries were converted into a great hall in Anglo-Saxon times. There's a little detachment of Roman soldiers (the 2nd Augusta) drilling in a field, forming tortoise formations. Meanwhile men dressed as woad-painted Britons are smoking fags.

After drinks in the Samson Inn, we phone a taxi to take us back to Haltwhistle. The driver tells us about all the famous people he's had in his cab, including Gloria Hunniford, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Costner: "Drove him to the George in Chollerford. He sat in the front. Seemed all right like!" He was also on hire to Newcastle FC: "Alan Shearer gave me a tenner - still got it!"

A night out in the pubs of Haltwhistle, full of men wearing the black and white Newcastle strip. "Hikers!" yells one when he spots us, as his mate falls over in the road. Newcastle lost 5-1 to Manchester United today.

Tuesday August 31. To Carlisle

After breakfast, we catch an 11am train to Carlisle, which is all red. There are red castle turrets by the station, a red sandstone cathedral and red brick terraces. Even the host of our bed and breakfast has a red nose ("as if it's been caught between two bricks", says Chris).

Tullie House Museum has a good Roman gallery. There's a reconstruction of part of the wall, with a legionary standing on top, and a blast of cold air for realism. You can crawl through a Roman lead mine, use a Roman steelyard, fire a miniature Roman catapult, and sit on a cavalry saddle.

Carlisle completes our journey along Hadrian's Wall. Tomorrow it's the train back to Newcastle, and then home.