And, indeed,
it is farewell to the west coast mainline. Fortunately for Ben and Gary, this means
getting a train over an hour later than the 06:43 from Euston which they’ve so
far caught for all of this year’s walks. Today it’s the 08:00 from King’s Cross
which arrives at Newcastle just before 11:00. Unfortunately for John, he still
needs to leave Cheltenham on the 07:10 and doesn’t get to Newcastle until
11:30, but at least no change of trains at Birmingham is involved. Ben and Gary
while away their 40 minute wait at Newcastle by having a late breakfast at a
platform Costa outlet, and early lunchtime sandwiches are then purchased on John’s
arrival. Our Geordie Colin (Ronnie) is in the station entrance hall to greet us
and drive us the hour or so back to Kielder. The Anglers Arms is open, but it
isn’t difficult to resist its attractions and set off through the Kielder Forest
Drive. As its name implies this is, for the most part, a narrow road through
the forest, so it’s a gentle and straightforward walk which rises gradually, and
eventually emerges from the trees reaching a height of 1500 feet at Blakehope
Nick. The weather’s fine, but a bit dull and therefore, although the views from
the top are pretty good, they’re not extensive. As we start the descent, the
road becomes narrower and, having become accustomed to a seemingly
non-problematic route, we miss a track off to the left which leads to Byrness.
The resulting diversion adds a mile or so (and a couple of very damp fields) to
our walk and we arrive in Byrness as darkness falls. A circuitous route around
the village brings us to the Green and our overnight accommodation, the Forest
View, which is essentially a hostel with food and a small bar, catering
principally for walkers. Our host, Colin, immediately takes our boots and other
damp clothing to his drying room, and we accept his offer of a cup of tea, and
still have time for showers, before the bar opens at 6. We’re the only people
staying tonight, and Colin is the only person “front of house” (his wife,
Joyce, having to deal with a family bereavement). It transpires that he’s more
than a little accustomed to hosting people who walk the Pennine Way, a
relatively short section of which we will be experiencing tomorrow and on our
planned final trip of the year in a few weeks time (November). And not only
hosting them, but also arranging for them to be collected from the ridge of the
Pennine Way, occasionally in a none too healthy condition. Colin’s very firm
advice is that we should reconsider our plans for November because, by that
time, the weather will be so unpredictable as to be dangerous, with conditions
in Byrness (or places at a similar level) being no indication of what might lie
in wait on the ridge itself. It’s because of this that he doesn’t take guests
from November to March. Anyway, despite stories of white outs, hypothermia and
accidents (at least one involving a body bag), we have a relatively enjoyable
evening meal – and a calming sticky to follow the wine.
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 18th
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.
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.
Day 84 – Silloth to Kirkbride
No transport
problems this morning. Our train arrives a few minutes late at Carlisle, but Flimby Colin’s son is there to drive us to
Siloth, to which many apologies because it isn’t the one horse/crossroads town
previously described. Residentially at least it’s quite extensive, but the few
commercial outlets are all based around said crossroads where we arrive just
before noon. The first 90 minutes or so of today’s walk is north east to Grune
Point and then back round the headland to Skinburness. This follows the
coastline along a concrete seafront promenade and a couple of tracks, and we
know that the vast majority of these two days will be spent on roads and
pavements. However, on leaving Skinburness, we’re able to leave the road and
cover the next 6 miles or so towards Abbey
Town by crossing Calvo
Marsh. We quickly realise why the guide book says that this should not be
attempted in misty conditions or at high tide. Apart from the occasional farm
building, the marsh is pretty featureless, the waymarking is sporadic at best,
and there are frequent ditches which it’s possible to get over when the tide is
out, but which presumably become creeks when it comes in. And when we’re not
crossing ditches, or scanning the horizon for waymarking and stopping to check
on the logger that we’re going the right way, the underfoot conditions are
essentially an expanse of tussocks, so it’s not the most comfortable or
enjoyable couple of hours. Still, it’s taken us off the road and closer to the
sea, and the weather’s clear and warm; so mustn’t grumble. We’re back on the
road for the stretch from Abbey Town to Newton Arlosh, but the next and final
section is through a series of fields and past a couple of large World War II
aircraft hangars to reach a lane into Kirkbride and the welcoming sight of the
Bush Inn. We’re staying a few miles away at Wheyrigg and, while Ben and Gary have a refreshing
cider, John (who is on antibiotics and therefore off alcohol) tries to order a
cab. This takes some time – due just as much to difficulty in getting a phone
signal as the scarcity of Colins in the area – and involves much discussion
with a man at the bar who runs a B&B in Bowness, and speaking to someone in
Wigton who is only prepared to do the job for the princely sum of £40. However,
eventually, somebody more accommodating called Sean is found who can pick us up
in 20 minutes. Shame…that means a second cider for Ben and Gary. We arrive at
Wheyrigg around 7 o’clock for a cost of only £15 and, although Sean can’t do
the return journey tomorrow morning due to a Manchester
Airport booking, he says that he will
be able to pick us up tomorrow afternoon and take us to Carlisle
station. Pre-supper showers at Wheyrigg prove to be variable, but food and
drink is more than acceptable and, having been unable to find us a cab for
tomorrow morning, our host kindly offers to drive us to Kirkbride himself.
Result.
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