A large package arrived yesterday from England. It contained all the informaton I need -- presumably and hopefully -- to cross Great Britain from east to west next month. I'll be following Hadrian's Wall, for a distance of 84 miles.
The materials, and the handy guide book that accompanies them, were written in England for the English. Only 3.5 percent of the registered hikers on the trail are American, by last count. These materials, therefore, are written in a British tone of constant amused understatement, a tone that I find unfamiliar, but quite congenial.
My first day of hiking will barely get me across the urban sprawl that is Newcastle, starting from an area near the North Sea coast and continuing to the western city limits. The guidebook warns that:
one or two trekkers have also been subjected to insults and threats from local kids ... and have written to say that they felt threatened in these areas. We should, I suppose, be thankful that the abuse has so far been just verbal and that these incidents, as unpleasant as they are, are still quite rare.
Oh, fantastic! I'll begin my pastoral wanderings by having to contend with coal miners' kids with Geordie accents. At least, thankfully, guns are illegal in England.
The remaining days of the trek, however, sound fascinating, replete with historical remnants and references -- days that will find me strolling across meadows and moors, stopping to eat and sleep in picturesque inns and pubs.
This trek will be no wilderness hike in the American -- or even the Himalayan -- sense of the word. The official trail parallels at varying distances a modern road that in turn follows the course of a military road built in the mid-1700's, back when it was necessary to rush troops from Newcastle to border areas where they were needed to contend with the troublesome Scots. That military road, in turn, followed in parts a military road constructed by the Romans themselves, and in other parts was actually built atop certain more or less leveled portions of Hadrian's Wall itself. The trail's route is a palimpsest: layer upon layer of military and civil construction dating back at least 1,900 years.
Although I'm hiking "alone," I'll hardly be alone on the trail. Many British hikers of all ages visit portions of the trail just for a day hike; others come to hike for two or three days, camping in designated campsites. In 2006, there were 6,667 hikers who trekked the wall from beginning to end, with July and August being the most popular (and, not so coincidentally, driest!) months.
The trek, therefore, will not be a wilderness hike; instead, it will be more like an 84-mile tour through a crowded museum of history and archeology -- but a museum that's also lived in by farmers, innskeepers, villagers and townspeople, interesting English folks who call it home in the 21st century.
The wall is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the trail itself has been designated a National Trail since 2003
I leave in five weeks. I'm excited, and rarin' to go
No comments:
Post a Comment