Richard Uridge sets off along the Hadrian's Wall Trail, a brand-new long distance walk. Opened this weekend, it's 140km (84 miles) long and takes the average walker about a week to complete. It starts at Segedenum Roman Fort at Wallsend on Tyne and ends at the RSPB reserve at Bowness-on-Solway on the west coast. A riverside route along the Tyne gives way to predominantly arable farmland above Tynedale. It opens out to the rough grazing upland section dominated by the Whin Sill escarpment and gradually drops down to the richer pastures of Cumbria and finally the open salt marsh of the Solway Estuary. It's part of the Countryside Agency's National Trails scheme and Richard joins the Agency's chief executive and chairman and a group of others for a bracing walk along the middle section.

David McGlade is in charge of the trail and it's his job to ensure that the footpath is acceptable monumentally, to try and avoid the wear and tear from tourism and for it also be acceptable to local farmers. It involves combining archaeological and farming interests and delineating areas for walkers. The project has been going for eight years and would have opened last year but for foot-and-mouth. Project manager Paget Lazari explains they have 14 bridges made of the same steel as the Angel of the North by a Newcastle architect. They used three km of golf course turf to lay along the wall because they didn't have time to grow the grass.
Hadrian's Wall
National Trails
Northumberland National Park