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.