Here we are on the outskirts of Bowness-on-Solway, the western extent of the Hadrian's Wall path, and almost at the end of our 84-mile trek.

On our final wet morning's walk, we passed Drumburgh Castle, another pele tower that once provided refuge from the reivers, popped in for lunch and a roaring fire at The Highland Laddie in Glasson, marvelled at Port Carlisle's docks - built complete with canal to Carlisle in 1819 but barely a century later obsolete - and were caroused by songbirds in the thickets along the final coastal stretch of path.

 

 

 

 

 

We managed to get an evening meal, and our passports stamped, at the pub at the King's Arms in Bowness on its early closing night (it's worth checking which night in advance).

As we'd already checked into our B&B, we took a stroll after our meal through the drizzle to the RSPB reserve at Campfield Marsh, just west of the village. Roll the mouse cursor over the picture to see which rare bird I managed to photograph.

Shore Gate House, our B&B, had outstanding views across and the length of the Solway Firth, which were revealed in the morning sunshine.

This view into Scotland is of the Chapelcross nuclear power station which generated electricity for 45 years until 2004; its cooling towers were demolished on May 20, 2007 and videoclips of this can be seen on YouTube.

We couldn't have a lie-in, as the AD122 - the appropriately-named bus service that connects Bowness to Wallsend - left at breakfast time. A guide from the local tourist office joined the bus partway, providing a helpful commentary and travel advice.

Vindolanda was built in AD 85 and so pre-dates Hadrian's Wall, built some four decades later. We hadn't visited it on our walk as it involved a six kilometre round-trip diversion from the wall. Fortunately the AD122 bus stops here so we broke our journey back for a couple of hours to look around.

It is a very well preserved site with a museum full of Roman artefacts and an active team of archaeologists: we ourselves saw a recently excavated altar being packed for despatch to the British Museum for study.

Vindolanda's most famous discovery, now in the British Museum, is over a thousand wooden writing tablets with their Roman inscriptions still intact - ranging from quartermaster's food orders, to garrison wifes' letters, and reports on the activities of the local 'Brittunculi' - or wretched Britons. Our guide explained that some tablets had probably survived being burned on a bonfire because heavy rain had extinguished the flames (No change there, then).