Wish You Were Here: A Pleasant Hill couple’s Hadrian’s Wall trek

The last year has been filled with travel for our adventurous readers, who have road-tripped through Tuscany, ridden camels in the Sahara and toured some of India’s most spectacular landmarks. Along the way, they’ve shared their journeys and offered helpful travel tips.

The latest “Wish You Were Here” installment comes from a Pleasant Hill couple whose United Kingdom adventures included a look at England’s ancient Roman past. Find even more reader travel inspiration at www.mercurynews.com/tag/wish-you-were-here/.

Wish You Were Here

ENGLAND: Pleasant Hill residents Sharon and Bill Gegg trekked the length of Hadrian’s Wall last September on a trip to the United Kingdom. “Hadrian’s Wall was built by the Roman emperor Hadrian around 122 AD and crosses England, with the construction going from east to west,” Bill says. “The wall is over 80 miles long but there is not much wall at the beginning or the end, so we lopped off a bit on both ends, walking about 60 miles along the wall — plus many more miles from the wall to the nearest cafe or our lodging. The walk was epic. The countryside is exactly what you picture when you think of pastoral England: green and lush. We walked from west to east to have the prevailing winds at our back and chose September for the weather.  I saw a shirt that said ‘Hadrian … Yes, we had rain,’ but most of the rain we encountered was a warm mist.”

TRAVEL TIPS: “We hired a firm called Hadrian’s Haul to carry our luggage between stops, leaving us to carry only our day packs. Wonderful to arrive every night at our lodgings and find clean clothes. Take your time — the wall is not going anywhere — to explore the villages along the way.”

Join the fun! Send a photo of yourself on your latest adventures — local, domestic or international — to jburrell@bayareanewsgroup.com. Tell us where you are, who everyone is and where they’re from, and share a travel tip or two to help fellow readers go there, too.