The Queen Stage of our Mini-break! Starting from Alston, there was plenty of climbing to be done, and for John, benchmarks to collect and catalogue. The weather stayed good for the morning, but was forecast to change somewhat in the early afternoon.

There were some fantastic views looking down into Haltwhistle, where we decided not to stop for coffee, but to push on (a shame as there were plenty of coffee shops - the futile push was to "stay dry" in the afternoon...). Hadrian's Wall at Steel Rigg is massively photogenic and a bit of a tourist honeypot, so we stayed a short while and then dropped down to the Twice Brewed Inn just before our booking time.

After lunch there were a few spots of rain as we headed down to Haydon Bridge and John was indulged with another of his collecting hobbies, "station bagging". Then the rain came down so we all bagged up into our rain jackets, heading back to Whitfield for the climb to Allendale town, where there were no open cafes, but a CoOp looked inviting. Again the consensus was to push on, whereupon I stayed with John on the tough wet and windy climb over Carr Shield, and back through Nenthead to Alston.

A really tough day.