The only bus back from Bowness on Solway to Carlisle in the afternoon is at 14:15. The plan was to do the last stage of the walk, get this bus, collect my case from the hotel and get a teatime train back South.
I now knew I would have to allow myself a window of 7 hours walking time to account for my slowed pace.
I had considered doing the final stretch back to front: getting a morning bus to Bowness and walking back to Carlisle, but this didn't feel right: I wanted to finish this thing PROPERLY, east to west.
Plus, at the pace I was now going at, I wouldn't have got back to Carlisle till six o'clock in the evening.
The upshot of all this was that I needed to set off walking a lot earlier than I'd done on previous days
Luckily, the shooting pains I was getting in my left ankle had gone. I now only had one knackered foot to worry about and even that was bearable once I got moving. I was also popped up to the eyeballs on cheap Asda Red Bull rip-off, Blue Charge.
The pleasant path out of Carlisle follows the banks of the River Eden as it meanders to the Solway Firth, then cuts across to Burgh by Sands where Edward I died. There's a statue by the village green marking this fact, plus a monument a mile out of the village marking the spot where the Hammer of the Scots popped his clogs.
It's also the halfway point of the day's walk. 7.5 miles to Bowness on Solway.
No Wall here though. All I have is my guidebook reassuring me that this hedgerow here, or that muddy trackway there, closely follows the original alignment. But no matter.
Despite the gammy foot, I found myself making good progress. I crossed the Solway Marsh with its ridiculously long straight flat road (of which the Romans would have been proud) and found I had time for a twenty minute refreshment break at the La'al Bite in Drumburgh.
This sort of place had occured quite regularly along the Wall path in the last couple of days: Ad hoc refreshment spots by farms with drinks, ice cream, crisps etc, picnic tables and benches. Little honesty box oases to cheer the footsore traveler. Full respect to the kind people who provide these services.
Realising I only had a couple of miles or so to go, I pressed on. No time to linger at Port Carlisle and the crumbling overgrown remains of the short lived Carlisle canal - journey's end was around the next bend.
It's surprising how close Scotland is across the Solway at this point. Annan is only about a mile away and looks it at low tide. It really does seem like you could just stroll across. Come to think of it, this is probably something the Romans realised when they built their Wall across to this quiet backwater.
I rounded the final bend and walked into the sleepy village and found my way onto Banks Promenade: Up a ginnel between two houses.
On a tiny terrace overlooking the Solway there sits a little wooden shelter with a bench and a Hadrian's Wall Walk stamping station.
And that's it. The finish line (or start point if you're going East to Wallsend).
No whistles, no razzmatazz. Just a quiet spot to contemplate what you've achieved or what you're about to embark upon.
Which is a nice way to do it, I reckon.
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