Hadrian's Wall, Day 5, Wall to Ryton

On Friday 1 May 2015, we got up and made our own breakfasts.

I decided I had to have a full cooked breakfast, because I could!

There was a lovely Tortoiseshell butterfly clinging to one of the cottage's windows so I gently put it outside. It was such a beautiful little thing.

We left the cottage about 09:00 and set off back on the trail.

The weather was glorious to start with today and I began in just a t-shirt.

This only lasted for an hour or so before the cool wind was back and I had to put another layer on.

We passed our last piece of wall in a field and plodded on.

We came across St Oswald In Lee Church in Heavenfield. It's a little church in the middle of a field, built on the site of a battle.

Anne-Marie and I decided to go inside while Jackie talked to some guys who were walking the trail in the opposite direction and camping along the way, planning to complete the whole 84 miles in 4 days!

The Church was lovely inside and kept beautifully well. From the displays, it seems the Church is very much at the heart of the community.

A bit further along the trail we found a Tea Room and shop on a farm. There were cows in one of the barns munching away on hay whilst listening to 'Material Girl' by Madonna being played very loud. It seemed a bit strange but we thought that maybe the farmer has the radio on because it relaxes the cows! I bought a drink and a snack in the Tea Room and we set off again...

... through more gates and stiles than we could shake a stick at!

We walked through a small pine wood and a field of lovely fluffy Belted Galloway cows who were very inquisitive.

Such a nosey cow!

We stopped for our flapjacks on three perfectly positioned rocks on the top of some hills with panoramic views. It was stunning. Just as we finished eating, the clouds returned and it started to rain. Thankfully it didn't last long and the sunshine returned.

The landscape then changed to more open fields and a very long straight road which we essentially followed for many miles. We could see Newcastle on the horizon!

There were fields of rapeseed and other crops and a nature reserve.

There were some beautiful footpaths to walk along and when the sun was out it was glorious.

As we neared the outskirts of Newcastle the views across the valley were stunning.

We stopped for a photo call and also for a cuppa and a welcome sit down in a large Tea Room. There were gluten free cheese scones so I had to have one; it's trekking law.

Whilst walking we spotted (cue excuse for cute lamb photos) ...

... lambs ...

... pheasants ...

... more lambs ...

... calves on their lunch break ...

... a lamb with the biggest ears in the world ...

... a Robin ...

... even more cute lambs ...

... Scooby Doo ...

... and a sheep who had the most expressive sheep's face in the world!

We reached the banks of the River Tyne and rang our accommodation provider. Even though I explained we were walking, the woman just gave me a postcode to put into sat-nav. I did this and we followed it to a post office. We had walked about 20 miles by this time so weren't best pleased to be struggling to find our B&B, which turned out to be a pub with lodge accommodation. We asked some locals for directions and we discovered that we had walked right past it about a mile back! They very kindly offered to give us a lift to it and we gratefully accepted. When we finally got there to check in, we were asked to fill in registration forms. Anne-Marie had a sense of humour failure because she was exhausted!

We dumped our bags and went back to the pub/restaurant for dinner. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the food was pretty good and, for the first time during the trip, we all had a pudding! I think we had worked up a big appetite from all the walking.

If you would like to help me towards my fundraising goal for this year, please visit my fundraising page by clicking here

My blog describing our final walking day will be published tomorrow...