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Link to part 4:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&p=207363_____________
Morebattle to Dufton, along the Pennine WayAfter spending my rest day relaxing and planning ahead, I felt ready to tackle the next section of my walk. Thanks to my guidebook I knew I wouldn’t find any shops for at least a couple of days, so I tried to stock up in the local shop. Easier said than done as the selection was very limited, so yet again, my food supply consisted of my trusty jaffa cakes (I really should have asked McVities for sponsorship money for this trip!)
I got up early and enjoyed a large breakfast, finishing off with a single malt to steel myself for the day ahead. It was raining, but I was in a great mood and looking forward to the next challenge.
I followed St Cuthberts path to the Border Hotel in Kirk Yetholm, the official end, or in my case start of the Pennine Way.
I used the opportunity to have an excellent lunch and a few drinks. I wasn’t in a rush as today would be a short day. Having started from about 15km outside of Kirk Yetholm, I wasn’t up to do the first section of 46km in one go and planned to spend a night in a bothy, 8km in. The guide book had warned me that this section of the walk would be pretty boggy and hard-going. The Pennine Way started off beautifully, gently leading up over grassy hills.
As I started to wonder what all the fuss was about, the muddy and boggy part started. It didn’t take long before my boots and trousers were soaked and I cursed my decision not to take gaitors!
Even though the bothy did a relatively good job at sheltering me from the howling wind outside, it was bitterly cold and instead of relaxing with a good book, I had a quick dinner and hid all the way down my sleeping bag to keep warm.
It was an uncomfortable and sleepless night due to the cold and feeling a bit stressed about the journey ahead. I knew I would have to cover about 38km to reach the next village, further than I had been walking so far on good terrain and with no options to sleep outside really as everywhere was absolutely soaked after a rainy month. Despite having been awake, I got out of my sleeping bag quite late which added to the stress. My boots and trousers were still wet and nearly frozen. Looking out the bothy didn’t improve my mood either, being met by hailstones and snow! Grumpy, cursing and quite scared, I finally set off after having called ahead to book a B&B in Byrness.
What followed was probably one of the hardest days of my journey; I was tired, cold, hungry and worried all day. It didn’t take long before my feet went numb from the cold, wet boots and I hurt both ankles slipping about in the mud. The dreary looking landscape didn’t help either. Progress was slow but I knew I had a lot of ground to cover so I didn’t stop once all day to rest or even eat, there was nowhere to sit down and have a break anyway as everywhere was wet and soggy. According to my guidebook, this section had become a lot easier in the last years as a stone path had been built. I found the path… mostly under about a foot of water! Considering my lack of experience at the time, it was a pretty stressful day.
As so often already though, when I started to feel like I couldn’t go on anymore, something positive happened to help me continue on. This time, in the form of a grouse of all things. Usually, all they do is make me jump when they suddenly and noisily appear out of nowhere and fly off. This little guy however landed right at my feet and started to happily chirp away. He remained within touching distance and to my surprise kept following me, for over nearly 2 miles (!), always just running alongside me and chirping away as to fire me on to keep going.
Video of my new friend following me:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2p2wg677ko7opyh/Grouse%20Follower%202.MOVIt sounds silly, but at the time, that little bird made a real difference and did a great job distracting me and cheering me up. I was quite sad when he flew off and felt sorry I had no food to give him. By now I was past the bog though and getting closer to Byrness, feeling delighted and motivated again. The scenery had become a lot better and I enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
Seeing the sun set made me realise though that it must be getting quite late and I still had about 10km to go. When I called the B&B in the morning, I had told them I would be arriving around 9pm. This had been a complete guess though and as I refused to check the time during my walk, I was starting to worry what time I would arrive and if they would still let me in if it was really late. I wanted to speed up but my feet and ankles were in agony, so my progress was still slow despite improving terrain.
(quick side note as people have repeatedly told me that I could just check the time whenever I wanted on my phone. Sure, I could have, but my phone was off and in my backpack unless I used it to book a B&B. I had decided to not care about day and time, and I am very stubborn and stick to my decisions!)
By the time I finally reached Byrness, it was well beyond nightfall and I was worried whether they would still let me in, not wanting to sleep rough in my current state. In my haste I then made the mistake to just rush towards the village centre, assuming it would be easy to find the B&B in such a small place, especially considered it was named after the town itself! Turned out it was about a mile down the road and coming into the village had been an unnecessary detour. As I walked around Byrness, a local approached me and asked me if I was looking for accommodation, he owned a B&B. I felt quite a dilemma as I was beyond exhausted, unsure whether I would still be let in at B&B I had booked and tempted to just accept his offer. I felt a bit bad though about having booked a bed and not taking it and he suddenly made my decision a lot easier by talking down the other B&B. While he was very friendly, I didn’t appreciate him talking trash about other people, so I thanked him for his offer and headed towards my original B&B.
This turned out to be a great decision, and if anyone is ever in the area, I cannot recommend ‘The Byrness’ highly enough! It was nearly 11pm when I finally arrived, yet despite my worries, they welcomed me in and told me they had kept the fire burning so I could dry my boots and get some heat into me again as they expected I would have had a rough day.
I was starving, but I didn’t want to inconvenience them any further and told them I would just head to bed. They insisted on not letting me go to bed hungry though and told me to grab a nice hot bath while they would prepare some food for me. When I came back down, a full three course dinner awaited me, served right next to a crackling open fire place. I have no words for describing how happy I felt at that sight!
After a fantastic sleep, I had breakfast and set off towards my next destination, Bellingham. I had only gotten a few miles when suddenly a truck pulled up behind me, it was Katie, the owner of the Byrness B&B. She handed me a paper bag and told me she had made me some packed lunch for my journey but had forgotten to give it to me…I was absolutely amazed! There really is nothing better than the kindness of strangers! Feeling motivated and happy, I continued on. Today’s journey mostly followed a good path and for the first time I encountered other Pennine wayfarers and we exchanged information and tips about each other’s upcoming paths. I realised that doing the walk the ‘wrong’ way was actually quite nice as I would encounter the majority of people doing the Pennine Way and would often stop for chats and exchange tips.
Apart from a few small rain showers and the occasional boggy sections, it was a pretty good walk. From my encounters with other walkers though, I knew this wouldn’t last but for now I enjoyed the easy walking. Right up to the last hour or so of my journey when I suddenly sank up to my knees in muddy water and yet again had soaked boots! Shortly afterwards, out of nowhere the sky darkened and a proper storm hit me.
So yet again, I arrived at my destination soaked to the bone, tried my luck at the first hotel I encountered and spent the rest of the evening washing socks and drying my shoes with a hairdryer. It had been a relatively short section of only about 25km, but after the previous day it was a welcome break.
It looked like I had an easy 24km section ahead of me, so I had a leisurely breakfast before setting off. The path was still quite boggy, but by now I was used to it and the scenery was absolutely stunning, so I wasn’t too bothered by the mud. I had several breaks, chatting with oncoming Pennine wayfarers. Two of them were particularly impressive, two elderly ladies on their way doing the Land’s End to John O’ Groats trail, backpack and all! I can only hope I am still that fit once I retire!
Reaching my destination after 24km, I realised a crucial mistake, there was no accommodation anywhere near it, the next village offering somewhere to sleep was another 12km to go, along Hadrian’s Wall. By now, torrential rain was pouring down, so bivving was not a great option. 12km isn’t a huge distance, but when you think you arrived for the day and suddenly you have to keep going, it is enough to ruin the mood a bit. But heyho, part of the adventure, so I popped a couple of Ibuprofene tablets as my feet were pretty sore, grabbed a pair of dry socks and continued on. Hadrian’s Wall was stunning and I was a bit gutted that I couldn’t fully appreciate this part of the walk as I had been looking forward to it, but the weather was pretty miserable. At least I got a few brief breaks from rain to whip the camera out and take a few shots.
I decided though that at some point in the future I would return to walk the full length of the wall, so I put my head down and sauntered on until I finally reached Greenhead, where I knocked on the door of the first B&B I came across, which luckily had a vacancy, not a guarantee along this popular walk!
I didn’t get far the following day before realising that the previous days had taken quite a toll on me, physically and mentally. My feet were in agony from being constantly wet and the constant mud and rain had drained my motivation quite a bit as well. A lone walker I encountered told me to not expect this to improve any time soon, which didn’t help either. Unfortunately I had the same grim news for the journey he still had ahead of him. I knew I needed some form of motivation to force me onwards, so I got my phone out, picked a village called Alston, about 30km ahead and booked a room for the night. Now I simply had no choice but to keep going whether I wanted to or not! As extra motivation I had booked the room for two nights, so I knew I would have a rest day awaiting me to further spur me on. Ibuprofene tablets kept me going through the day.
I had no dry socks left to swap into and eventually I just had enough of the boggy paths and tried my luck on an alternate parallel route, following an old railway track, assuming that it would be over solid ground. Sadly I was wrong!
I was delighted when I finally reached my accommodation in Alston after a pretty rough day. Washed my clothes in the sink and spent the evening and most of the following day just lying in bed, recovering and reading, just nipping into town briefly to stock up my supplies of jaffa cakes and painkillers. It was quite a quaint little town, but my feet were too sore to appreciate it, so I headed back to my bed.
The day off had done me a lot of good and I felt ready to brave the next section of my walk, 34km to Dufton. I was a bit weary after being told previously that I could expect more mud, but to my surprise the following section was an absolute delight to walk. Sure there were a few muddy sections, but nothing compared to what I had come across the last few days. I had to think about the guy warning me and felt sorry for him, if he considered this bad, he would not be enjoying his last few days to Kirk Yetholm!
The day started with mostly grassy paths along a river before heading up into the hills and having to scramble over rocks, past abandoned mineshafts, a real pleasure after all the mud!
When I walked past a bothy, Greg’s hut, I was almost sad it was still too early to call it a day as it looked really cosy.
It had been raining on and off all day but as I got to the top of Cross Fell, the highest point along the Pennine Way at 893m, the sun came out and revealed incredible views over the Lake District. It was very windy but I found some shelter at the top and stopped for lunch break, ie jaffas, and chatting to various people.
Compared to the previous days, the top of Cross Fell was bustling with people.
As I headed downhill towards Dufton, out of nowhere fog came up and it started snowing! Only a very brief shower before the sun came out again, but still surprising considering it was nearly May by now!
A strong wind came up but apart from that it was a smooth walk into Dufton
… until it got dark and upon looking for my glasses (I was wearing prescription sunglasses during the day), I found that they were broken into two! I could have kicked myself for not carrying a few grams more and opting for a hard case for my glasses! I felt a bit stupid walking into the youth hostel wearing sunglasses but I am nearly blind without them!
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Link to part 6:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=38158