Between Humsaugh and Housesteads I forget what attracted me to the adventure of a long distance walk. I have plodded on for hours without connecting to my surroundings, mechanically conquering crag after crag. Though my feet register the changing landscape, I observe little of the rugged terrain I read about earlier. The comfortably soft, red velvet image of the Crown Inn has long vanished, only the young men’s breakfast chatter of blisters and misty hilltops stays with me.
“Breezy and bleak!” said the New Zealander.
“Barren but beautiful!” nodded his British friend.
They are walking in the opposite direction - Bowness to Wallsend – they tramped through these stony outcrops yesterday. The younger one, the Brit, left traces of blood on a towel in our shared bathroom. This morning the wastebasket revealed remnants of crumpled surgical tape and pieces of gauze.
“Moleskin.” I heard somebody say. “Use Moleskin.”
The steady drizzle has become a wind-driven rain that is strong enough to blow me sideways. My knees are shaking. Is that what Roman legionnaires endured two centuries ago when they built their forts and milecastles and turrets? I keep my eyes to the ground but finally stop to pull on my poncho. Facing the field wall, leaning toward it, trying to shield the inside of my daypack from the rain, I dig for today’s section of the guidebook. Through foggy glasses I read a few sentences:
“The walk is now going steadily uphill, with an ever-steeper drop falling away to the north.” And then, “Here is one of the most spectacular views of the Wall, snaking away into the distance, following the high ground to take advantage of the natural defences of this dramatic landscape.”
I am, so the map tells me, in the midst of Northumberland National Park and have just left the rocky slopes of Sewingshields Crags. I must have missed Milecastle 35.
The supersized green poncho, hidden away in an emergency pack in the trunk of my car for more than 20 years, turns out to be an indictment on modern plastics, at least plastics of the early1980s. As I unfold it from its sealed bag it feels limp; while I pull it over my head it tears in several places. Without a sound it falls apart under my fingers. When I continue to walk a gust rips the front apart, from my neck down, and I have to stop again to find something to hold it together. The clothespins are in my suitcase and all I can retrieve from the bottom of my daypack are two paper clips.
Shreds of plastic flutter in the wind like flags as I stomp along the border of the ancient Roman empire. A tired old soldier on his way to Housesteads. My silhouette must be that of a dark green tent, backpack and teddy bear bulging under the rear wall, the front pinched into a makeshift seam by purple pieces of bent wire. The wind whips the hood against my ears. For a while I hold it tight under my chin, but my fingers become so cold and wet that I can’t resist the temptation to slip my hand into the pocket of my coat underneath the rain gear.
A group of men catches up with me at the bottom of a sharp rise and I stop to let them pass. Without slowing down they inquire, ”Having a good walk? The oldest one of the six – probably in his fifties - hesitates for a second, just long enough to let me know that he understands my forced smile.
“A bit windy today.”
I assure him that I am fine, “just catching my breath.” I zoom my camera for a quick shot and watch until they disappear over the top of the crag. They wore shorts and short-sleeved shirts and their muscular legs didn’t seem to mind the steep hill. Even after all of them have disappeared their laughter echoes in my mind. It is the first time since I started this hike five days ago that I feel sorry for myself. All alone in the middle of nowhere. Something I had looked forward to. Something I thought I liked. What happened?
I hope that my mantra for the “sleepless-midnight-blues” works on “stormy daytime greys” too, and I whisper Om Mani Padme Hum. I repeat the Tibetan prayer several times, take a few deep breaths, and a long 360 degree look around.
To my surprise I am being observed at close range. A sheep stares at me. Her long, cream-colored coat is blown into a neatly combed shag rug; brown eyes are bulging from her black face; dark-veined ears move just slightly, as if she is trying to pick up clues about me. She stands on thin, mottled, black and white, legs. I untangle my camera underneath the poncho, wipe raindrops off the lens with the edge of my coat sleeve, and capture her image. She isn’t the first sheep I encounter on my walk, but the only one I see in this area. It is, as some gates point out, lambing season along Hadrian’s Wall and special care is expected so mothers and babies are not disturbed. Yesterday I watched some of them walk in unison, stare at me in unison, run away in unison. Occasionally a lamb drifted too far away from its mother and when it saw me it tumbled toward her and sucked onto one of her teats. Some mothers turned their heads, alarmed by my approach; others ignored my presence. This one, I decide, must be a grandmother like me.
For a while we just stand there, eyeing each other. I have the silly urge to explain myself to her. Tell her about this mountain of green plastic that hovers on the narrow path. Apologize for ignoring her homeland. And thank her for visiting with me.
“You’re not the first person to get depressed out here,” she says. “But look on the bright side, you’re almost at the Fort. And don’t you people get food and showers and beds when you finish your day’s walk?”
She doesn’t take her eyes off me while she shakes her head. “You look silly.”
“I feel better now,” I hear myself say, rubbing the camera dry before I slip it under my coat. I lift my face and let the rain run down my cheeks. For the first time today I smell the damp soil mixed with a hint of grass. With both hands I rake through my wet hair.
“Hello world,” I say out loud, “I’m talking to a sheep.”
Then I laugh.
“Good bye sheep. Thank you.”
The imagined exchange fills me with exuberance. I feel the ewe’s compassion even as I understand the silliness of this thought. A sense of belonging, that’s all I needed. I gaze far into the distance of the open countryside now, across fields, strips of shrubs, roads, woods. Ridges and furrows where the Wall rises and disappears into the distance. For the next mile I climb and descend at a faster pace. Just before I arrive at Housesteads I take off the poncho, wad it into a small wet clump and stuff it into a ziplock bag. Housesteads is one of the most popular places along the Wall, the most complete example of a Roman Fort in Britain; I don’t want to arrive in rags like a beggar. What would the young legionnaires think of me?
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