Day 93 – Horncliffe to Spittal

The Castle’s current residents include a large number of men who are repairing the roof of Berwick station and who, following a couple of hours of early morning work, return to the hotel for breakfast at 9 o’clock. So our request for an early breakfast at 7 has been readily accommodated, and we’re ready for departure when last night’s Colin arrives to pick us up just before 8. We’ll be walking until around 2 and reckon that, by then, we should have reached Spittal (just south of Berwick) where, according to Colin, there are two pubs, The Albion and The Blenheim. Arrangements are duly made for him to pick us up from the Blenheim at 2:15 and, having collected our John-fabricated walking poles which are still outside the Fishers Arms, we walk back to the Tweed. The path down from Horncliffe is still quite muddy, but underfoot conditions by the river itself aren’t too bad and, as it transpires, we might have reached the chain bridge which crosses the Tweed and leads to Paxton House by nightfall yesterday. As it is, we get there around 9:30, walk over the bridge into Scotland, and wend our way up to and through the grounds of Paxton House itself, an extremely grand 18^th century building. Having said farewell to the Tweed so as to follow the border north east, we discard the poles (very tidily of course) as we leave the Paxton estate onto a series of country roads. We approach Lamberton where paths through several fields rise steadily and, as we reach the brow of the hill, we are greeted by the splendid sight of the North Sea. There are still some more fields to cross, along with the small matter of the A1 and the East Coast mainline, but eventually we reach the coast about a quarter of a mile north of the border at what is the most northerly point of our walk. It’s good to be back by the sea and, having crossed the border back into England, we even get a bit of beach action as we approach Berwick. We also pass Magdalene Fields golf club which is, we reckon, the first course we’ve seen since arriving in Silloth on day 83. We mark the occasion by spending a few minutes admiring the expertise/local knowledge of a three ball playing into a green from about 150 yards. By the time we arrive in Berwick, it’s almost 1:30, and thoughts turn to whether we’ll get to The Blenheim in time for something refreshing before Colin collects us at 2:15. However, we press on and, having crossed the old bridge over the Tweed, it’s only a 20 minute walk along the other bank to Spittal. We pass the Albion (which looks uninviting) and, as we continue down Main Street towards The Blenheim, Colin also arrives; another reminder of Silloth where, after nearly 6 hours walking, we got to our destination within a couple of minutes of our transportation. Given the convenience of this development, we decide not to spend our time in The Blenheim, but rather to return immediately to the aforesaid attractions of the bar at The Castle. Colin gets us there within 10 minutes which affords more than enough time for a pint of cider before John needs to walk over to the station to catch his train, and a further 15 minutes for Ben and Gary to sneak in another half (and for Ben to sort out his contact lenses) before the departure of the train to London.  

Day 92 – Coldstream to Horncliffe

A promising start to our 2017 walks. Storms Doris and Ewan have passed through, and things look set fair for the next couple of days. A potential hitch arises when Ben and Gary’s train to Berwick terminates at Newcastle because the line north has been closed due to somebody having been hit by a train near Alnmouth. However, the line has re-opened by the time John’s train arrives 40 minutes later, enabling Ben and Gary to join that train and the three of us to arrive in Berwick together and meet up with our pre-ordered Colin. It transpires that our accommodation this evening, The Castle, is immediately outside the station, so we make a minor diversion to leave most of our kit there before being driven to Coldstream. We’re dropped off outside the Collingwood Arms by a junction which John reckons will mark the finishing point of the missing section from Windy Gyle and Kirk Yetholm which we’re aiming to tick off in May. If it does, the Collingwood looks as though it will be a more than acceptable place to nestle whilst awaiting transportation. For now, we set off just before 1 o’clock and find our way down to the Tweed which we’re hoping to follow today as far as Paxton. All goes smoothly for the first 90 minutes or so. We then cross a viaduct over the River Till, a tributary of the Tweed, in order to rejoin the Tweed itself. At the top of a track which leads back to the river, we meet a couple of workmen who warn us that the bank path which slopes towards the river is extremely slippy and “quite treacherous” and that they have had to negotiate parts of it by edging along on hands and knees. Their description of the path proves to be accurate and, in the initial stages, Gary adopts the hands and knees technique (not without a degree of concern, nay panic, that he might slide into the water), Ben tries the slide along on the bum strategy, and John somehow manages to stay on his feet. This performance lasts a good 30 minutes after which the path, whilst still slippy, becomes less steeply sloped towards the river, and stability is increased by a couple of rudimentary walking poles fashioned by John from tree branches. Something which doesn’t markedly increase, however, is our pace which had dropped to a crawl and still doesn’t rise above a couple of miles an hour, but we are at least able to pay a bit more attention to the wonderful scenery of the Tweed and its fauna, to include a seal, a couple of deer and a flock of geese – or a skein when several of them fly in front of us. Our reduced pace makes it questionable whether we’ll now get to Paxton by sunset, and the prospect of trying to do so on a muddy path as darkness is falling makes us choose the more prudent option of finishing a couple of miles short of Paxton at Horncliffe, which has the added attraction of the Fishers Arms. We arrive there just after 5:45 to find that it doesn’t open until 6 but, almost immediately after we sit down to wait outside, the landlord opens the door and announces that he’d be happy for us to come in and to let us have a drink whilst he’s taking his pre-opening time shower. It would be churlish to refuse such hospitality….so we don’t. A Colin is summoned, picks us up at 6:15, and we’re at The Castle in Berwick by 6:30. And a very welcoming place it proves to be. The rooms are comfortable, the water is hot, and the food is not only substantial but also, along with the bottles of wine, very reasonably priced. After supper, it’s difficult to resist the attractions of the hotel bar to which we retire for just the one sticky and a cursory glance at the TV to see how the West Ham v Chelsea game is going. Predictably as it turns out; Chelsea win 2-1.

Day 91 - Byrness to Barrowburn

To maintain the mood of last night, John has been reading a blog written by someone who, when walking the section that we’ll be on today, managed to fall into a marsh! Colin provides a good breakfast, and also some supplies for our journey, and sees us on our way. Strange to think that this was one of our first encounters on the whole walk – if not the first – with someone called Colin and he wasn’t a cab driver. Today starts with a climb to 1300 feet within the first hour, so the clothing strategy is not to wrap up too heavily in the light of the immediate exertions, but to have layers readily available to don as soon as we reach the ridge before the cold starts to bite. And it proves to be a sensible strategy, because the temperature at the top is several degrees lower than it was in Byrness and there’s a bit of a breeze, with occasional light rain, coming from the east. Bracing at best. It’s an extraordinary landscape. Spectacular for the short periods when the sky is clear; somewhat forbidding when the clouds roll in. And always the sense that you’re many miles away from anywhere and anyone. The route itself is reasonably clear, but it’s quite hard going, involving frequent rises and falls (albeit not steep), and having to find our way around some boggy areas or crossing marshes on duckboard which, on most occasions, proves to be somewhat slippy. Our aim is to walk to Windy Gyle and then down from the ridge to a car park where we’ve arranged to be picked up. However, there are a couple of earlier routes down which would involve a longer (but more predictable) walk along a road to reach the car park. By the time we reach one of these bale outs – which starts from a mountain refuge shelter near Lamb Hill – there are varying degrees of tiredness within the party and, having munched our way through Colin’s provisions in the refuge hut, we decide that the predictability and higher temperature of the road route is the sensible option. Having worked our way down to the road, it’s then 3 miles or so to the car park, skirting the edge of Otterburn Military Camp and passing some soldiers having what would appear to be a mid-exercise breather. Our taxi is waiting at the car park and gets us to Newcastle station in time for us to sample the delights of the Centurion, a former first class passenger lounge which has been converted into a rather splendid and spacious station bar. Just the one leisurely and very welcome drink before catching trains home.

Postscript:  During the immediately following days, we decide to follow Colin’s advice and cancel our November trip. Subsequently, having regard to the distinct possibility of unpredictable weather lasting until March/April, it is also decided to start our 2017 walks in Coldstream and to postpone the Windy Gyle/Kirk Yetholm/Coldstream section until late spring/early summer.