Page 64 - RADC 2017

Exercise Hadrian’s Wall 2017 – Part II
LCpl Sinead Cook, RADC
At the end of March I received an email which informed me I could put my name down for Exercise Hadrian’s Wall. I thought this would be a great opportunity as I had never done anything like this. I am fairly new to the Royal Army Dental Corps and this would be ideal to meet more people in the Corps.
The route was 84 miles, starting from Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria to Wall’s end and the hike took us 5 days.
Day 1
Everyone arrived at Carlisle castle where
we were to stay for our first night before the adventure began. We spent the day getting organised for our first day of walking. Lunch was made for the following day and in the evening some of us went out for dinner. Lights were out for 22:00hrs, but you just couldn’t sleep due to the noise of trains going past during the night followed by the pigeons in the early hours of the morning.
62 RADC BULLETIN 2017
Along the way we had presentations to do on different topics...
Day 2
So this was our first day of walking. We started from Bowness-on-Solway and morale was good even though there was a
little rain. Maj Armer also dressed up as a Roman centurion for the full hike. It was mostly country roads, farms and flooded fields. At some points we were all walking through marshy fields with water coming
to above our ankles but we still carried on. Along the way we had presentations to do on different topics such as on the life of a soldier posted on the wall, and who Hadrian was and why he ordered the building of the wall. By the end of the day everyone just wanted to get out of their wet clothes but it was all worth it in the end though, as we had amazing fish and chips for dinner.
Day 3
We slept in a gym in RAF Spadeadam, on gym mats and in our sleeping bags. We had a great English breakfast to start our day off. Our third day was dry and mostly country roads and farms with lots of cows seen that day. We had finally seen some of Hadrian’s Wall - everyone was looking for it only to
find out we were standing on it and it was covered by grass! To end this day we went to a local pub and had surprise sausage and mash, and then back to RAF Spadeadam for an early night.
Day 4
ADVENTUROUS TRAINING