Hadrian’s Wall Walk Day 1: Bowness to Carlisle

Disclosure: Advertising and affiliate services, including Amazon Associates, help the cost of running my blog. Clicking ads or making purchases through affiliate links may, at no additional cost to you, earn me a small commission. I appreciate your support.

It’s been almost a year since my friend and I first talked about the Hadrian’s Wall Walk. After much hiking in Canada where we live, our confidence in our hiking ability grew and we decided to take our Team Sloth Hiking Group international. England seemed like a safe choice – I’m from Carlisle originally near Hadrian’s Wall, so I know the area and my family still live there.

I will be writing about each day of my hike in greater detail, starting with this one, our first day. I also aim to point out some of the highlights of each day as well as some of the things you might want to know about in advance. We broke down this 84-mile/134km hike into six hiking days averaging 12-15 miles (19-24km) each.

Day 1: Bowness-on-Solway to Carlisle

If starting from the West, and heading East, as I did then Bowness-on-Solway will be your starting point. This day, although long, is relatively easy. It’s 15-miles, or 24 kilometers from point to point, and the village of Burgh-by-Sands makes an excellent mid-point stop.

There’s barely a bump in elevation throughout the whole day, and while there is some road walking, there’s lovely coastal views, a few cute little villages and plenty of beautiful countryside along the way.

If, unlike me, you don’t have a local relative to drop you off at the start of the hike, you might want to book a place to stay in Bowness-on-Solway. The other options are getting a taxi to the start of the trail – it takes about 25-30 minutes to drive from Carlisle – or take a bus. The bus (number 93/93A) takes about an hour but it’s either an early morning bus or will have you starting later in the morning or early afternoon.

Accommodation options in Carlisle

You won’t find any camping here like many places on the trail. Carlisle is a city, and a good place to stock up on supplies before the trail. A few places I would recommend as they are central in the city:

$$$: Carlisle Station hotel (handy for those arriving by train into the city); Crown & Mitre Hotel (right in the city centre, closer to the start of the trail)

$$: Ibis Carlisle City Centre hotel, Cornerways Guest House (great breakfast included)

$: Carlisle City Hostel (closer to the trail than a lot of hotels)

Starting the Hadrian’s Wall Walk

All the long days of walking to train for this hike, the hours spent packing, re-packing, analyzing every aspect of the daunting 84-mile walk didn’t prepare me for being dropped off at the start of the trail and watching the car drive away.

Now what? The only thing to do – start walking.

Being from Carlisle, where we would end the day, meant I voluntold my Dad he was our taxi for the day. We arrive in Bowness-on-Solway at 9am. A brown sign on the side of a white-washed building pointed to the start of the trail at the Banks Promenade. After the obligatory first-day-of-school-esque photo, we make our way along the narrow set path to a lovely early morning view of the Solway Firth estuary.

This turns out to be a detour solely to direct us under the covered archway that marks the start of the trail. On one side it welcomes end-of-trail hikers to the finishing point, for us it marks the start.

The daunting words etched into the wooden sign in regal red lettering state maybe a bit too matter-of-factly “Wallsend 84 miles”. Underneath, a little more encouragingly “Good luck go with you”.

We stamp our first stamp of the Hadrian’s Wall Passport and off we go. I’m not expecting any kind of fanfare obviously, but somehow this feels a bit lackluster. We pass an elderly lady out walking her dog through the village. She smiles as we amble past. Not even a “good luck”? I guess locals see hikers every day and we’re just two more crazy people walking the width of the country in a week, when you can drive it in an hour or so.

Bowness-on-Solway to Glasson

We start walking along the main road out of Bowness. The street is narrow. The village quiet. And the clouds are heavy and grey, looking ominous for our long day ahead. There is a slight wind, but it’s not cold.

Hadrian’s Wall Walk, being one of the National Trails, is signposted with an acorn symbol. Throughout the hike you’ll follow so many acorns you begin seeing them in your sleep. But the first one we find indicates we had 1 mile to Port Carlisle. Our first milestone.

The brick houses of Bowness-on-Solway give way to an open road with fields to the right and the Solway estuary to the right. A rickety fence along the narrow grass verge is all that separates us from the adjacent coastline. Other than a few people walking their dogs along the beach, and the odd car whooshing past us, civilization seems far away.

Port Carlisle is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spot, all that’s remaining from a once bustling village at the end of a historic canal. A hundred feet or so off the shoreline are the remnants of this canal. The coastal path we follow finally takes us away from the road. With marsh reeds to one side, we are led through a woodland area then across the main road and onto a muddy path skirting fields to our first stop, Glasson.

Along the way we meet no more than a couple of people – local’s out for a walk – and the sound of birds increase with every step further into the countryside. At Glasson, the clouds part and blue sky shines through. We are 4km/2.5-miles into our hike. Time for a rest on a village bench. Rest stops are not something I’m good at, so on this long hike I’m making a point to remember them.

The clip-clop of horse hooves on the asphalt in the distance and the noble country village houses all around make it feel like stepping back in time. A few vehicles are the only real sign of 21st Century life. I kind of love it.

Glasson to Burgh-by-Sands

With a few snacks and a bit of hydration, we set off again through Glasson. The Hadrian’s Wall Walk signs direct us into our first of many fields. The desire to take photos of the adorably cute little lambs proves too difficult to resist. While keeping a good distance, it appears one ram is less than happy with our presence and hurries us along a bit.

After a bit of a winding hill past a couple of really nice houses, we arrive at the village of Drumburgh. It’s the first place we’ve spotted somewhere to grab a bite to eat or drink on the trail. There are bathrooms, hot and cold drinks and an assortment of snacks. You can find the Laal Bite rest stop at Grange Farm opposite where you emerge on the main road.

After Drumburgh starts the long stretch of open land through Burgh Marsh. Note at this point there isn’t really any tree coverage for windy, rainy or super sunny days for at least a couple of miles. For us, the sun is now out in full force.

Cows are everywhere. The long, straight tarmac road through Burgh Marsh is lined with cows that saunter across it as they please. After a lot of road walking already, we opt for the higher grassy path to the right – away from the cars. There’s only one real point where we get a bit close for comfort with our bovine friends. Shooing them away only moves them a few feet. But we make it through and a short distance past the marsh we arrive into the village of Burgh-by-Sands.

Burgh-by-Sands rest stop

We have made it past the halfway point for the day, and just in time for pub opening time. My friend lives in Burgh and is kind enough to refill our now depleted water bottles. After a few minutes chatting about our first few miles, we wander over the Greyhound pub in the village. Taking a well deserved seat on an outside picnic table we order our lunch and a half pint of local beer. Then the rain comes.

We quickly gather our things and hustle inside, taking refuge in a cozy corner of this historic pub. I know at some point on this hike we’ll get rained on, but there’s no need to make it worse when you have the option to go inside.

Devouring our food, we find ourselves surrounded by other hikers. After seeing none on the journey so far, we’ve all had the same lunch idea. A borderline retired couple from Utah. A nice older couple from Virginia. A middle-aged couple from London.

We chat about our itineraries. It’s at this point we discover everyone else seems to be working on a more relaxed 7, 8 or even 9 day itinerary. Not us. We see all of them at one point or another in the next few days, but now wish them luck for the afternoon and set off for the rest of our walk to Carlisle.

Burgh to Carlisle

Leaving the pub, we chat to another solo hiker whose accent suggests he’s from Germany, though we don’t clarify. Whereas the rest of us are all on day one, he’s traveling the other way and on his final day. He tells us of his first day where he did 50km carrying a 50lb backpack. We are not the same kind of hikers.

As we leave Burgh, we meander through the surrounding villages of Beaumont and Kirkandrews-on-Eden. A temporary diversion of the Hadrian’s Wall Walk takes us further from the river than we thought we’d be by now. No less pretty, but we do question at one point if we took a wrong turn. In Kirkandrews we bump into a local who asks us all about our hike, seemingly impressed with what we reply.

The couples from lunch at the pub seem less sluggish from the meal and beers than we are and we soon get lapped by most of them. One group of four are particularly speedy so we slow down to let them pass.

Through these little villages we find more snack boxes set aside. Honesty boxes next to them for money. They sell bags of crisps, chocolate bars, and there’s even a mini fridge hooked up with ice cold drinks. There are however no bathrooms anywhere after Burgh. That is until we see a sign saying we missed a Portaloo somewhere along the way. Damn.

Our trail starts to get a little more industrial on one side, but has the river on the other. We traverse a few more fields before beginning a long riverside trail that will take us the rest of the way.

Hadrian’s Wall Walk in Carlisle

A proper trail. Lots of people out for a walk in the nice early summer day. But the trail gets a little more boring the closer we get to Carlisle. We reach a part of the trail I’ve walked plenty of times with my Dad taking the dog for a walk. I assure my friend that Carlisle Castle is only a few minutes from here. It is – if you walk by the road. But for us, on the winding Hadrian’s Wall Walk, it takes a further 20-30 minutes to reach.

By this time we’re tired, but it’s still not even 4pm so we decide to push a little further to help make tomorrow a little shorter. We enter Bitts Park and the long road through to get back to the river. Passing under the Eden Bridge around the back of the Sands Centre the trail opens up to a beautiful wildflower lined path next to the river. It’s a nice way to end the day, although I’m not sure we appreciate it as much in our tired state.

We call my Dad as we get close to where today’s trail ends and tomorrow’s will begin. My old high school. We sit on the side of the road waiting for our ride, unable to walk even a few feet more. Today’s sun has worn me out and I’m starting to look a little red. Today we completed 16-miles/26km. Now we get to have a good night sleep before day 2, after packing the remainder of our gear. Good luck go with us.

If you’ve enjoyed this post leave a comment or share using the social media buttons below. Have you done any of the Hadrian’s Wall Walk? What’s your longest hiking day?