Day 89 – Kershopefoot to Kielder

A good breakfast, and we are provided with return transport to the bridge which we reach just after 8:30. For about an hour and a half we’re walking through the Newcastleton and Kershope Forests, and zigzagging a couple of times between England and Scotland. But we stay in England for the final part of that section, and for the following 3 hours or so through the Kielder Forest, with the only border crossed being the one between Cumbria and Northumberland. Nothing much more to be said. It’s simply a very enjoyable walk on a warm, dry day through trees and gentle rolling hills along well defined tracks. There are certainly worse ways of spending a morning. The tracks eventually bring us to an attractive curved bridge over an inlet from Kielder Water, and the final couple of miles are along the Lakeside Way which, in this area of Kielder at least, is singularly ill-named. Due to distance and/or trees between us and the shoreline, we only rarely catch sight of the lake itself. At a T-junction, we’re not completely sure which is the better way to turn in order to reach our ultimate destination, the Anglers Arms. However, a gentleman with a dog directs us to the left – and adds that he’ll see us at the Anglers a little bit later. It only takes another 20 minutes to get to the pub which allows more than sufficient time for a drink, a bite to eat, and a nod to greet our dog accompanied T-junction guide when he arrives. Carlisle Colin also arrives, slightly ahead of schedule, and so, when we’re eventually dropped off at the station, we’re able as on the last trip to make a relaxed diversion to the Griffin before catching our trains. We’re not sure about our travel arrangements for the next trip, but could this be our final journey via the west coast mainline…?   

Day 88 – Longtown to Kershopefoot

So ShedWeb proved to be a reliable indicator of the national mood. And since our last trip, two other slightly less momentous – but more immediately relevant – decisions have been taken. First, to abandon carve-up Colin in favour of the firm that got us from Gretna to Rockcliffe, and secondly to start our walk today at the junction of the A7 to the north of Longtown. Our first post-Brexit trains are on time; Carlisle Colin (or Connie?) is at the station to meet us; her roundabout lane arbitrage is exemplary; and we get to our start point without incident around noon. We set off north east towards Kirkandrews where, from St Andrew’s Church, we cross the Esk by a suspension footbridge which was built in the 18^th century (and has recently been overhauled thank goodness) to connect the church with Netherby Hall on the other bank. After passing through the Netherby Estate, the next couple of hours are pretty unremarkable along narrow lanes. Today’s walk will end at Kershopefoot, near the western edge of the Kielder Forest, but we’re due to be staying about three miles away, across the border, at the Grapes in Newcastleton. The owner/landlord has said that he’ll pick us up if we let him have our ETA at Kershopefoot and it becomes clear that we’ll have to phone him sooner rather than later whilst we still have a mobile signal but with our estimate being potentially less reliable. There’s now some drizzle in the air and, having resisted the temptation to call in at a pub (i.e. it’s closed) we phone the Grapes just after 3pm to say that we should be at Kershopefoot around 4:30. At 4 o’clock, we’re walking along the edge of the Kershope Forest, the rain is getting heavier, and we still have about a mile and a half to go. John speeds up and disappears into the gathering gloom, Gary makes a token gesture at acceleration, and Ben keeps going. And whilst John emerges at the Kershopefoot bridge just before 4:30, it’s Ben who times his arrival only a couple of minutes before our lift comes into view and just after the rain starts to hammer down. Our good fortune with the weather surely can’t last….? It takes around 10 minutes to get to the Grapes, which means early sharpeners on our arrival and, after the required drying out and freshening up, a similarly early supper. Even with a sticky afterwards, we’re back in our rooms by 9 o’clock, leaving in the bar several locals who were there when we arrived 4 hours earlier.

Day 87 – Rockcliffe to Longtown

The Hunters Lodge provides an early breakfast during which several attempts are made, by us and our host, to obtain transport back to Rockcliffe. The phone numbers provided yesterday evening provide no joy (in most cases no answer), but eventually a taxi firm in Carlisle is able to supply a Colin which returns us to the Crown and Thistle by 9 o’clock. The Esk follows a semi-circle to the Metal Bridge but the path along the river bank doesn’t extend all the way to the bridge. We follow it as far as we can – which includes making a telephone call to a local nature conservation authority for permission to use a track along a raised bank alongside some apparently “protected” land – but eventually we have to cut inland just before the Esk boathouse. We’re not 100% sure that we then follow the prescribed route through some small fields and paddocks, but eventually we emerge on a lane which leads to a footbridge over the main west coast railway line and from there to the Metal Bridge. The walk from Rockcliffe has taken almost a couple of hours, reconfirming the wisdom of our decision to bale out yesterday at the Crown and Thistle. Despite several attempts by John to find alternative routes, the next section of about 45 minutes over the bridge to the outskirts of Gretna has to be walked alongside the main A74. Fortunately, the traffic isn’t too heavy, due in no small part to the M6 running in parallel. The road sign which we saw yesterday is still warning of heavy rain, but the sun continues to shine as we turn north east and start our attempts to reach Berwick-on-Tweed by staying as close as possible to the Anglo-Scottish border. These attempts begin by walking through what appears to be somebody’s garden to reach the River Sark, which forms part of the western border. We cross the river a couple of times as we continue through a series of fields and then along country lanes which eventually bring us to a junction with the A7 to the north of Longtown. A decision has yet to be made on whether our next trip will start here or whether we will follow a more southerly route starting in Longtown itself. To keep options open, we walk the final couple of miles into Longtown which conclude with Gary coming a cropper on an overgrown alleyway running alongside some kind of lorry park/storage depot. Crossing the bridge over the Esk, our eyes light on a pub on Longtown’s high street (possibly the Globe) outside which our Colin from yesterday is conveniently parked. However, he has arrived 30 minutes early, so there’s more than enough time for a reviving cider in the outdoor shade, postcard purchases for Ben and John, and post-cropper clean up for Gary. The drive back to Carlisle includes a minor “carve up” incident at a roundabout which our driver unjustifiably blames on the other motorist in a manner which leads us to question whether he will receive the benefit of our custom next time. He does, however, get us to Carlisle in very good time for our trains, so we while away the wait by having a drink and a sandwich in the Griffin, a large pub just outside the station. On the train back to London, Ben and Gary notice across the carriage aisle Alan Johnson MP – a reminder (if one is needed) that, by the time we return to Carlisle, the EU referendum will have taken place. If polls which John has been monitoring on ShedWeb (Gloucester RFC) are to be believed, it’s going to be very close and, if anything, is tending towards Brexit. (We also notice from the comfort of our carriage that the heavy rain which was forecast earlier has at long last arrived!)

Day 86 – Burgh by Sands to Rockcliffe

From Burgh to the Kielder Forest via Sean’s bridge is about 40 miles. We’ll need a full day to walk through the forest, so John has been investigating the possibility of fording the Eden before reaching the bridge because the resultant saving of 8 miles would give us a chance of reaching Kielder at the end of our walk tomorrow. Given the narrow window of lunchtime low tide on the Eden, the chances of this proving to be practicable are slim, but they are reduced to non-existent by the late arrival at Birmingham of John’s morning train from Cheltenham. Although the train from Euston to Carlisle (with Ben and Gary on board) is still at the adjacent platform, its doors have been locked by the time John has disembarked and it disappears northwards leaving John – and about a dozen others who had unreasonably supposed that there was still a concept of “connecting trains” – fuming at New Street. Net result is that Ben and Gary arrive at Carlisle shortly after 11 o’clock and wait an hour – mainly spent breakfasting in the buffet – for John to arrive on the next train from Birmingham. However, a Colin from the station gets us to Burgh in about 20 minutes (with arrangements being made for him to pick us up tomorrow afternoon), and we’re eventually under way just before 12:30. It’s a short walk from Burgh to the Eden via the Edward I monument (marking the spot where the king died whilst encamped on his way to “hammer the Scots” in 1307) so it isn’t too long before we know for certain that the river level is now too high for fording. Indeed, it soon transpires that fording probably wouldn’t have been possible at any time because, after another mile or so and before the point where we would have tried to cross, the riverside path becomes impassable and we have to retrace our steps to join a lane going inland towards Beaumont. Rather irritatingly – particularly for John who has only just got over his annoyance with Virgin Trains and Network Rail – this means that our logging stop at the end of 2 hours takes place only a few hundred yards from where we were at the end of hour 1. The remainder of the route along the south side of the Eden is through a series of fields interspersed with country lanes and a short section of the Hadrian’s Wall Path and, by the time we’ve crossed Sean’s bridge and turned back to the north west, it’s approaching 4:00pm. The chances of us reaching the Metal Bridge (and its eponymous pub) on the Carlisle side of the River Esk at a reasonable hour are rapidly diminishing, so the decision is made to “ease off” and finish today at Rockcliffe which, conveniently, also has a pub, the non-eponymous Crown and Thistle. We’ll still have completed almost 15 miles, so similar mileages tomorrow and on the first day of our next trip will resolve the outstanding Kielder Forest issue – i.e. we’ll go through the forest on day 2 of the next trip. Sorted. In the meantime the walk to Rockcliffe is, for the most part, along the raised bank of the Eden and, with the exception of one or two overgrown fields and a diversion down to the side of the river to bypass some cattle (to include a proprietorial looking bull) the conditions underfoot are pretty easy. During the last hour or so, we hear regular rumbles of thunder, but it seems to be circling us and the heavy rain which we hear later has fallen in the area holds off until we’ve reached the Crown and Thistle. Clearly, the decision to stop here was the correct one. Earlier in the day John announced that, whilst he is no longer on the antibiotics which he was taking on the last trip, he has been investigating the benefits of a non-alcohol diet by remaining off the booze. Any such benefits must have proved to be marginal at best, or easy to ignore, because after one alcohol free lager (a contradiction in terms?) he rejoins the cider team for his second drink. A cab has been ordered to take us to our overnight stop, the Hunters Lodge in Gretna, and a sign by the road over the Esk warns of heavy rain tomorrow. Is our luck on the meteorological front about to run out? Our driver can’t take us back to Rockcliffe in the morning but he provides phone numbers of alternative Colins. Hunters Lodge is not exactly rammed but has comfortable rooms (albeit with slightly unsatisfactory shower pressure for some) and a satisfying supper during which it transpires that John’s earlier abandoning of his teetotal experiment was not a temporary measure.