Greenhead to Twice Brewed (7 miles) Wednesday 21st August 2002

Today four legs become twelve, with Jacqui, Tony and Toby from Cockermouth joining us for a section. Toby contributed four of the legs, in case the arithmetic was worring you. Oh and he is a dog, if the biology was worrying you. As it looks like being the hottest day of the walk so far we slap on plenty of sunscreen, (except Toby).
Navigation is simple: follow Hadrians Wall. The wall also follows the outcrop of Whin Sill which the roman engineers co-opted to improve the defensive strength of their barrier. There are a lot of undulations and the total climb on this section is almost 2000 feet, which makes for a fairly arduous 7 miles. The dynamics of walking in a group makes it a very different sort of day, and we saunter along gently with plenty of opportunities to stop and look at bits of archeology. However it is clear that despite the low pace of the day K is having a bad day. We get to the Twice Brewed Inn and settle down to a few pints before the hostel opens, Jacqui, concerned for K, is dropping hints that stopping might be a good idea, but with Scotland in sight and the smell of the finishing line in his nostrils K is having none of it.

Tony goes off to catch a bus back to Greenhead to collect the car to take Jacqui and Toby home. Later, much later, he reappears. “What happened there then?” “Well this chap out front said a bus would be a long in a minute. After half-an-hour I checked the timetable – no buses!”. “What did he look like?” Mr Spanner strikes again! Tony ended up hitch-hiking back to Greenhead.

One more offer of a lift home and J, T & T take their leave. Keith and I go off to explore the hostel. The hostel is right next to the Twice Brewed Inn and is called Once Brewed. It is a very large hostel which caters to hordes of school children in that week at school when they are “doing romans”. K and I have a twelve person room to ourselves. There are various stories attached to the once and twice brewed names, none of which appear to be definitive. The most common is that the beer was supposed to be so weak that some labourers building the Wade Road (now the B6318) asked for it to be brewed again. Dinner is taken in a facsimile of a school dining room. There is one family group and a few other people, but we do seem to rattle around a bit. Apparently it is to be demolished and replaced with something smaller, since fewer schools run trips when “doing romans”.

The evening is passed (inevitably) in the Twice Brewed Inn, which I principally recall for it’s bright red velour furnishings. My irises have never been the same since.