Day 85 – Kirkbride to Burgh by Sands

Early breakfast and, courtesy of our host, we’re back outside the Bush Inn by 8:30. Today we’re aiming to get to Burgh (pronounced “Bruff”) by Sands, via Drumburgh, and after an initial short walk to Whitrigg, there are three possible ways of getting to Drumburgh. Either directly east from Whitrigg; or north across Bowness Common to Bowness-on-Solway and then south east to Drumburgh; or west to circle around the Cardurnock Peninsula and back through Bowness. Not surprisingly, in the interests of coastal purity, we take the third route. This will mean a walk of around 17 miles to Burgh which is the same sort of distance that we covered yesterday. How strange it is that, in these circumstances, conversation now occasionally turns to One-Day-Johnny and One-Trip-Jimmy, our two mythical standard bearers for mileage comparison purposes, who haven’t featured in our discussions since….well probably the last time we managed over 15 miles per day. The guide book informs us that there is much of natural and historic interest on Bowness Common, but these delights are largely denied to us by following the road for the dozen or so miles around the peninsula. The only thing which might qualify as natural interest is the sight of some cows emerging from a farmyard in Cardurnock and then herding themselves slowly up the road (very slowly in the case of one seemingly lame animal) in front of us, and some cyclists, to a field about a quarter of a mile away. And historic interest comes in the form of the Hadrian’s Wall path which we join where it begins (or ends) in Bowness. By now, the continuous hard underfoot surfaces are giving rise to varying degrees of foot discomfort and, shortly after Port Carlisle, John opts for half an hour of shoreline action rather than continuing along the road towards Drumburgh. Further relief is afforded by most of the remaining 4 miles or so to Burgh being along a flat grassy bank which runs beside the road. So we’re not too weary on arrival at the Greyhound pub just before 2 o’clock. Sean isn’t picking us up until 2:45, so plenty of time for drinks, sandwiches, inconclusive discussion with the barmaid about why the pub is called the Greyhound, and a bit of map study to determine our route to and beyond Carlisle. After going through Bowness, some consideration has been given to whether it might be better simply to follow the Hadrian’s Wall path rather than to stick as close as possible to the border. The path would certainly be easier to follow but, in some places, it’s a considerable distance from the border and we decide that we’ll head to Gretna and the border. It’s not immediately clear how easily we’ll be able to get onto a newly built road bridge over the River Eden but, when Sean picks us up, he has the answer which is very easily. Not only is he able to show us by taking a short diversion over (and back over) the bridge on our way to Carlisle station but it also transpires that, before becoming a cab driver, he was a construction worker and was involved with the building of the bridge. And whilst he’d be more than happy to drive us back to Burgh on our next trip, he says that it would be cheaper for us to get a cab at Carlisle station. Very helpful and a really nice bloke. He gets us to the station today in good time for our trains and there is no temptation on this occasion to while away our wait with expensive cans of lager, because the Costa Coffee outlet is closed. An excellent couple of days and, after the problems encountered on the last trip, a feeling that we’ve started to make real progress again.