The Coast to Coast at Ease

The crossing opens at Segedunum fort, where a museum and viewing tower set up everything you're about to walk. The Tyne does the navigating through Newcastle, bridges, quayside, rowing clubs, before the path climbs gently through Newburn into open country.

Fifteen miles sounds a lot for day one, but it's the easiest walking of the whole trail. Heddon-on-the-Wall, with the first real stretch of standing wall, marks the end.

Open farmland walking along the wall's buried line, the ditch and vallum sharpening in the fields beside you as the Pennines gather on the horizon. It's quiet, rhythmic walking where the miles go by in conversation.

The day closes descending to the North Tyne at Chollerford, with Chesters Roman Fort and its riverside bathhouse a short stroll from your bed.

The climb out of the valley is long but kind, and then the trail's great set-piece begins at Sewingshields: crag-top walking with the wall at your elbow, Northumberland unrolling to the north, and short sharp climbs the Romans clearly designed for younger knees.

Housesteads fort sits mid-stage, then Crag Lough and the site of Sycamore Gap, and down at last to Once Brewed and the Twice Brewed Inn.

A brief, brilliant day. Winshield Crags, the trail's summit at 345 m, then Cawfields' quarry-edge wall, the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, and Walltown's superb masonry, with time to linger wherever the light is doing something worth watching.

You drop past Thirlwall Castle to Gilsland, on the Northumberland–Cumbria border, with the afternoon in hand, the Poltross Burn milecastle behind the old station rewards the ten-minute detour most walkers skip.

The day to respect. Birdoswald fort, crowning the Irthing gorge just out of Gilsland, is worth pausing for, the longest run of standing wall on the trail leads to it. After that the ground softens completely and the day becomes a long, low march through pasture and quiet lanes toward the Eden valley.

The river carries you into Carlisle through Rickerby Park. Eighteen miles is the crossing's longest day; start early, keep something in reserve, and save the city's castle and Tullie House museum for the morning.

The Eden leads you out of the city and the Solway Plain takes over: huge skies, wading birds, Scotland across the firth. Burgh-by-Sands, mid-stage, has a fort under its church and a king commemorated out on the marsh where he died.

The last miles run beside the estuary to Bowness-on-Solway and the little shoreline pavilion where the wall ends. And here's the point of this itinerary: you're not going anywhere tonight. Sign the finishers' book at the King's Arms, eat well, and sleep by the Solway.

Breakfast on the Solway without a bus timetable propped against the teapot. The morning connection runs via Carlisle, a short bus or pre-booked taxi to the station, then the rail network home. Full options are in your route pack, and unlike everyone who finished and fled yesterday afternoon, you're doing this bit fresh.