Thursday 22 August

Today is our last day following the Hadrian's Path wooden signposts. Tony brings all the bags down the narrow steep stairs and we start off towards Chester Bridge at 9.15am. It is a grey day with light rain falling, just enough to be annoying. Our route takes us on a seeming diversion away from the line of the wall, but it is only to make the climb up St. Oswald's Hill from 53 to 250m ASL easier, and get us off the busy B6318.

Close to the top of the hill is Planetrees where a short section of wall is preserved. It is also where the wall changes from 10ft wide (to the east) to 8ft wide for the remainder of its length. Although we continue to see evidence of the wall in the northern ditch and the vallum to the south, we don't see any stone sections for the rest of the day.

At the 9km point we find the Errington Coffee house at Port Gate. An early lunch of a small bowl of vegetable soup, and coffee costs £15. Our second leg takes us 6.4km to the Robin Hood Arms at East Wallhouses. Just before the pub we trek off the road and around a farm property. We see walkers queued up and milling around. The biggest, wettest and muddiest section of the path is revealed in the corner of the field. We opt to just trudge through in our waterproof Keen boots and jump over the water next to the hedge. All good but we're not sure we'll be very welcome in the pub with smelly muddy boots. In to the long grass to remove the worst of the mud and cow s***.

After a cleansing ale the final 5.4km goes without problem as we walk along the line of the road, behind the hedges on either side. We are passed by groups of young walkers in red t-shirts who are raising funds for childhood cancer.

Our walk today is finished for a total length of 21.5km. We walked for 5½ hours which together with our breaks for lunch and mid-afternoon drink, had us arriving at Iron Sign Farm just after 4pm. It will be nice not to have to put our boots on again tomorrow, so now must be the time to get the hose pipe out and give them a good clean.

Farmer Owen gives us a lift in to Heddon-on-the-wall to the Swan Inn for dinner. We take a taxi to return the 3km to Iron Sign Farm.