Two of our Royal Air Force Police personnel undertook a personal challenge to walk Hadrian’s Wall in 48 hours for Brain Tumour Research. Corporals Kim and David Patterson have written a short blog about their challenge:
Following the death of a family member to this disease, the loss of a colleague at RAF Boulmer, and the recovery of two RAFP colleagues from it also, we decided to raise money for this incredible charity. Our family agreed to take part in a fundraising event to walk Hadrian’s Wall in a week, but we took it a step further and decided to walk it in 48 hours to make it a real challenge and feel worthy of the generous donations that were being made. Luckily RAF Boulmer is in the beautiful county of Northumberland, with a stunning coastline, so training for the event was a joy in the months that led up to it.
Day 1 of the walk started bright and early on 1 Aug 21, at Bowness-on-Solway to the West. The first 3 hours were fast paced, due to the mostly flat roads with little ‘Wall’ to be seen. The weather was cloudy with misty rain which was welcome to cool down with! We then entered Carlisle, passing along and over a rather picturesque river and woodland.
We then passed through the other side to Brampton and Walton which greeted us with beautiful green hills and the rain stopped for us to enjoy the scenery. Suddenly Hadrian’s Wall was everywhere with the Wall, Forts, Milecastles and Turrets a plenty.
Walltown struck Kim with a calf injury out of nowhere but pure grit and determination saw her limp her way up the quarry hills before finally coming to a stop at Cawfields Quarry at sunset; fending off midges until our taxi arrived to take us to our hotel in true Royal Air Force style.
Day 2 started at the crack of dawn by tackling Cawfields Quarry and taking on Steel Rigg. Kim’s injury was a thing of the past and it was just aches, pains, and blisters for the pair of us with zinc oxide tape joining us as the third member of the not so dynamic duo.
This part of the walk alone is enough to exhaust the average walker, but soon after climbing along Steel Rigg we descended into Sycamore Gap, famous for its use as a scene in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. The obligatory selfie was taken with the tree before we continued on along the top of Steel Rigg and beyond to Limestone Corner before descending into Chollerford.
What goes down must go back up again and with the scorching hot weather we slowed down with lots more water stops. Reaching the top of the ascent again we joined with St. Oswalds Way (a 94 miler for anyone feeling brave enough?!) near Heavenfield and were greeted by more historical structures along the route. We continued along through Errington and Wallhouses before reaching Heddon-on-the-Wall and descending (painfully) down to the River Tyne where we followed it along past the Tyne Bridge and past the oh so inviting wine bars beside it with no hope of stopping; because if we did we wouldn’t be able to move again! Our walk had become more of a trudge as our leg muscles tightened and threatened to give up on us completely. There was no more Wall to be seen just the odd little acorn on a signpost to remind us of which way we were supposed to be going. We arrived at our final destination Segedunum, before sunset (somehow), and took a quick snap of the large Roman Centurion statue and landmark road sign before finding the nearest pub to unwind and check our JustGiving page. We have raised over £480 and were on course to meet our moderate £500 target.
In the end we completed our challenge in 29 hours of walking (36 hours if you include sleeping).
