Every time I travel with one of my siblings, there’s a bit of a logistical challenge just getting us to the same place to start the travel. For this walking trip along Hadrian’s Wall, with all four Sartin kids walking together for a week, getting us all to the start of the trail in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne has had its special challenges. Rob flew to London a few days ago, Tracy the next day, but Karen and I were flying separately to Heathrow on Friday overnight flights that happened to land within a half an hour of each other early Saturday morning.

So, a few dozen texts worth of “where should we four meet up when you get here? when do your planes land? are we sure we have all the maps and guides?” we hit the Friday night airline tangle. Karen’s and my flights were both delayed, so there was a brief flurry of texting to make sure we would meet up at Heathrow and head into London together to connect with Tracy and Rob. By a weird coincidence, we timed it so that my flight’s delay from Chicago and the second leg of Karen’s delayed flight plan to London (Pittsburgh to Montreal, Montreal to London) weren’t that far off, and we met up after only a little bit of waiting.

Then, of course, we had to get into London and to King’s Cross Station to meet Tracy and Rob, get our train tickets ironed out and make our way north to Newcastle. Somehow, though each minute of this seemed challenging, it went pretty smoothly, as evidenced by the happy faces above.

Our train ride from London to Newcastle was pretty entertaining, in a weird way, because there was a huge tour group of people from, I think, India, who had reserved seemingly the rest of our train car. A lot of people moving up and down the aisle for little chats, kids playing Uno, and almost constant snacking made it feel sort of like being at a family reunion for a family you don’t know, whose language you don’t speak. You could sort of guess who might be related by the way they interacted, and the hum of conversation was steady from King’s Cross until we got off three hours later.

Newcastle is a big sprawling port city. The Hadrian’s Wall Path begins oddly sort of smack dab in the middle of it. And our hotel is, even more oddly, not near the start of the trail at the Segedunum Museum, with an impressively preserved set of foundations from a Roman fort. No, our hotel is several miles further east, near the port. It isn’t glamorous or quaint and homey, but the shower is hot and the bed is soft.

Tomorrow, we set off, walking 15 miles. Much of that, the first 12 miles or so, is just getting out of Newcastle on riverfront walks. So we begin this plunge into the distant past by walking on modern pavement through a modern industrial town. But I am hoping that when we do hit the countryside, it will feel all the more dramatic.