Over the Wire Without the Aid of a Motorcycle

Day 17

I went to bed early, far too early to be able to sleep, it wasn’t as though I’d had a hard day to tire me out. There was also the racket of people trying to be quiet outside my door with dogs prowling around until quite late. On several occasions I’d be nicely dropping off to be started awake by a loud woof followed by an even louder shhh. I determined to make as much noise as I could in the morning to get my own back so at 5.45 I crept down the stairs as quiet as a mouse, the floorboards squeaking at me sarcastically, for the pre-prepared breakfast that had been left for me. As well as cereal this turned out to be three thin- sliced slices of pasty white bread in cling film with the miniature packs of butter and the cartons with enough jam in them to put on one side of a knife. I suppose this at least was better than that Danish bread which is more air than bread but a few thick wedges of wholemeal or multi-grained would have been more suited to my energy needs

Sat there in the quiet dim light from the standard lamp sipping my tea and nibbling my bread I felt quite daunted by the prospect of the day ahead. I’d walked over 20 miles often enough before but never as far as 26 and over something like the rollercoaster Cheviots. I use the term rollercoaster because even though, tracing the route on the map, there are not many tightly bunched contours there are a lot of named peaks on the way. There was also the point that once I got on them I wouldn’t be able to get off until the end. This was the real difference to other long days, there’s usually an alternative place to get to if you change your mind but with Uswayford closed there was nowhere else to go. The reports I’d read on how tough it was going to be didn’t help any either. Ignorance would have been bliss. Susceptible to all the propaganda, although logically I knew I would do it, there wasn’t an alternative anyway, it’s just that I had a horrible feeling I somehow wouldn’t be able to manage it.

Switching off the light I squeaked back up the stairs to my room. I filled everything I could with water as apparently there’s no stream, spring, brook, gill, beck, burn or even wadi to replenish from; then packed my gear. This exercise had become something of a futile ritual every morning. I would always make a real effort to remember every item I stuffed into my rucksack so I wouldn’t have the usual problem at the ohbuggeriveforgottentopack point. This is just before the Imusthaveleftthebloodythingintheroom mark which always comes well before the bollockstoitillbuyanotherone line which is situated between two and five miles from where I’ve been staying, depending on the value of the item I haven’t forgotten. Next would come half a mile of,

‘Of course I must have packed it.’

‘Well you’d better check.’

‘I don’t need to check.’

‘Well it’s up to you but you’re getting further away all the time if you do have to go back.’

I would give in at last and take the pack off. Even feeling around at the bottom didn’t do any good, the only way to find whatever it was was to take half the contents out the bag first.

After an optimistic smear of sun cream on my face I was out the door at six thirty. I mean by that I was out of the door to my room, it took me a bit longer to escape from the hotel.

The entrance and exit to the hotel was at the back through two doors separated by a short corridor. The inside door with a yale latch and the outside with a mortise. Passing through the first door it clicked shut behind me. I turned the key in the second then the handle but nothing budged. After a few seconds I saw a bolt I hadn’t noticed but after undoing that the door still wouldn’t open. Puzzled, I went to go back into the hotel but of course that door was locked. Wonderful! I thought to myself. I had visions of being trapped in the corridor for hours with bloodied hands from banging on the door while those inside were snoring happily through their Sunday morning lie in. The dogs were probably all dead to the world now as well, after being up most of the night keeping me awake. I couldn’t even phone the hotel to wake anyone as the number was among the superfluous bits and pieces I’d cleaned out of my bag the previous evening. I went back to trying to work out the riddle of the outer door and after several minutes messing about discovered a strange little catch under the handle which allowed me to open the door. I wasn’t so much relieved to get out as pissed off with the owner for another thing he hadn’t thought important enough to tell me about.

The MODs attempt at humour, to send you off with a smile

The road outside was much busier than I expected at that time on a Sunday morning but the path soon leaves it so you can start the day with another sweaty hill. I’d set off wearing my fleece but that was off and in the bag after three steps up the hill. Not once on the way up did I get the feeling I’d left something behind, I stopped half way because I remembered I hadn’t taken my aspirin. I have developed an erratic heart beat fairly recently, it now has a rhythm more in the manner of free form jazz than easy listening. Cool you might say, but it means I need to take a blood thinner to reduce the risk of a stroke. This means either the rat poison warfarin or aspirin. My wife said I shouldn’t risk the warfarin. Anyway, it was off with the rucksack again for a rummage for the medicine bag. You’ll never guess where it was.

After a bit of a scramble just before the top I was up. After over half an hour I was 500 yards from the hotel, for a crow. At least now I could get a bit of a move on. So, after stopping for a snack, taking a few photos, looking at the view through my binoculars, checking for signs of rain, studying the map, cleaning my glasses and scratching my arse, I was on my way.

The going was good to firm and I made reasonable progress. It just felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was beginning to suspect I was in another of those zones where Ordnance Survey have made the scale meaningless, it certainly seemed to take an age to reach the Roman camp site at Chew Green. An odd place to come for your holidays I thought. I took the advice I’d read in Justin Turner’s Pennine Way account and took the path upwards on the left which isn’t on the map. I used the excuse that you get a much better idea of these archaeological remains from height and at a distance than close up.

The path I was on went round Brownhart Law above where I ought to have been on Dere Street. Looking up towards the crest, about a hundred yards away, were a couple of hairy, horned monsters wandering through the grass. I’d read of the Cheviot goats but I’d completely forgotten about them and it took a couple of minutes before it clicked what they were. By the time I’d got my camera out they’d wandered off and though there were two more down the hill none of them wanted to pose properly.

The first refuge hut (towards the right hand side)

It was soon after this that I saw a sign which read 2½ miles to Lamb hill. I thought at last a marker to gauge my speed by, but this wasn’t a good idea. My average cruising speed on a long walk is 2 miles an hour but I felt I was moving quicker than that and expected to do the distance in an hour. When it took me an hour and a half I tried to convince myself that the sign was wrong. Of course I’d used up some time popping into the refuge hut to have a look but not long. I didn’t like the huts at all. I’m sure they’re a life saver and a handy place to eat your sandwiches in the wet but they are simply large sheds and I found them claustrophobic, which may have been caused by the contrast to the outside. You can’t really get much more outside than the Cheviots. Large rough looking rolling bumps in an exposed, featureless terrain with no sign of habitation, barn or stone wall to give it the post card prettiness of the Dales. If I hadn’t had to walk so far over them I’m sure I would have quite liked them.

Ken, the forecaster, had said the previous evening that the rain wasn’t due in the Borders until afternoon, indeed, the map behind him had been timed at 15.00 when it turned from the dark brown of cloud to the blue of rain. However the first warning spots fell just after Lamb hill at 11 o’ clock and the rain proper an hour later, on the way up Windy Gyle. I wasn’t too far away from being in the one in a million club of those Pennine Way walkers who’ve gone the whole length without being rained on but I got to properly use my new waterproof at last.

For hours of the walk I didn't need to look at the map and didn't know where I was. The nearest I can get is between Lamb Hill and Windy Gyle

At the top of Windy Gyle, in thick cloud I found an assortment of stiles to choose from. The map indicates that the path is on the other side of the fence so I climbed over one of them and hoped I was heading for the trig point. There was hardly any path all of a sudden and I couldn’t see five yards in any direction so felt a bit daunted again but the trig point soon appeared and I was able to let out the breath I was holding. There was only one path down the other side so I didn’t have a wrong one to pick. Visibility improved a bit, down from the summit, and I began to wonder what I was doing on my side of the fence. I could see, on the other side, a much better path than the thin scraggy one I was on, it had duck boards and everything. Another walker, coming up, appeared on it out of the fog so I checked with him to make sure it was the one I wanted and didn’t veer off somewhere down below before I clambering over to the correct side. He was a local man and told me that Windy Gyle was the half way point which cheered me up somewhat. After that it was Sunday rush hour. I met a couple ten minutes later who were looking forward to getting back to their car, out of the rain, then a bloke on his own half an hour after that. There had also been a mixed group of five or six teenagers near Lamb Hill attempting something or other for the Duke of Edinburgh, bag one of the goats perhaps. These were the sum of my encounters with other people over a 26 mile stretch on a Sunday in the middle of June. This, of course, is not counting John and Gary.

I saw them perhaps a mile behind me when I was starting up the slope which ends in the Cheviot himself, if you go that far. It didn’t surprise me in the least that they were catching me up, I can’t walk fast, even when I’m trying and I was starting to fade quite badly by this time. I could have done with the sandwich I should have bought in the café last night so as to get the carbohydrates I needed to keep me going. Instead I was snacking on chocolate and biscuits which only gave off a very short lived spark. They past me a little way before the corner and the boardwalk to Auchope Cairn. None of us fancied the idea of heading up into the clouds for the Cheviot summit. By all accounts the views are not that great anyway and on a day like this it would have been totally pointless. They stopped at the Cairn and I caught them up. When I arrived John was looking at the map page in his book trying to persuade his son that over the cliff into Hen Hole was the way to go and that he should go first, which would have been one way to solve the problem of inheritance tax.

From Auchope Cairn. The second hut is the light coloured dot, in the middle distance, just above the line of the fence

It was a bit blustery and the low cloud didn’t make for a great scenic shot but it had temporarily stopped raining so we got the cameras out before trooping down to the second refuge together. The weather in fact wasn’t particularly bad. It had rained fairly heavily but only for a couple of hours. It was pretty windy but then we were high up and exposed and it didn’t knock you over. It was also warm enough to only need a shirt under the waterproof. For the rest of the day it was mainly dry with the odd squally shower.

John was a firm believer in the more trekking poles you have the easier the walk

We sat in the hut eating our various snacks listening to one of the squally showers rattling away outside. I was claustrophobic again and thinking that in a really high wind it must feel as thought the shed could be picked up and blown over the hill. I’d saved the muffin for this time of the day when I thought I might well need the boost however, the Cadbury’s chocolate muffin was not a good substitute for my usual type and I wasn’t any less knackered than I had been before I’d scoffed the bits that hadn’t merely crumbled to nothing through my fingers.

John and Gary suggested we walk together the rest of the way but I knew I’d only slow them down so I sat on my own for a while occasionally noting their steady progress up the Schil, John with his heavy maps and Gary with his huge rucksack. It was another hill to get up, but it was the last one.

The Schil sounds German to me, but where I can understand the Welsh PenyGhent appearing in Yorkshire as a left-over from the Celts I’ve no idea why a small German alp has been placed in the Cheviots. For whatever reason it certainly had vays of making me beg for mercy. I was very nearly kaputt.

I was ok to start with, for about the first five yards, then I had to stop. Staring up at the steepness of the slope in despair it looked down its nose on me and said arrogantly ‘For you Tommy zer valk is over.’ I considered the prospect of walking round it rather than over it, but set off upwards again. After stopping every few yards I decided to use the tactic of fixing on a point about 20 yards away and forcing myself to walk that far before resting again. These distances got harder and harder and shorter and shorter as I slowly ascended. I don’t think anyone was watching but it must have been a pathetic sight. The relief, at last, when I neared the top and the incline gradually lessened was wonderful, then it was total delight when it flattened off and I could walk about freely.

The Hen Hole from the hut

From this point on it was plain sailing. I put two fingers up to the Black Hag as the path skirts round her to the left and said ‘Not today, thank you very much’ to a sign which offered me the prospect of more hills on an alternative high level route and started the descent down into bonny Scotland. From the heights I could see a good distance and there was no sign of John and Gary. I imagined they’d be sat at the bar on their second pint by now with John saying ‘You know, I would have helped you with that rucksack if only you’d asked, Gary.’

I found the walk down very pleasant, though once on the road it was rather boring and there seemed an inordinate number of horses about. Perhaps there’s a haggis factory nearby. I’d heard about a so called “sting in the tail” hill just before you reach Kirk Yetholm but I didn’t think it was much of a problem, which was a little strange after the battle I’d had with Der Schil. Immediately after it’s down, past a few houses to the green and there it is.

I’d seen a lot of photos of the Border Hotel on the net, although most of them had been of people standing triumphantly beneath the sign, and now there half of it was. I’d heard they’d had a fire and had to close while in Keld and then Tom in Bellingham had told me they’d reopened but not for accommodation. My intention had been to stay there if I ever made it but now I’d have to think about finding somewhere else. I crossed the threshold/ finishing line at seven thirty so thirteen hours to do 25 or 26 miles sounded about right for me.

John and Gary were still only on their first pint when I entered so they hadn’t been that far ahead of me. We were the only three customers. I was offered the free half by the barman and stunned myself rather by refusing. I did it without thinking. As the free drink is a promotion by the brewery you can’t have a free anything else so instead of having a free half I paid for a J2O which goes to prove being brought up in Yorkshire is not enough, you have to be born there to be a real Yorkshireman. I accepted my free certificate though which told me I’d only walked 250 miles. I know I missed a bit but I thought that was a bit harsh. I also signed the book and for a comment put “What do I do now” which was very much how I felt. I’d walked for two and a half weeks and now I’d stopped. I hadn’t any more walking to do. All I had to do was find somewhere to stay, something to eat then in the morning find out how to get home.

The b & b where John and Gary were staying (they were splashing out in celebration) was full so I got out my list and the first one I tried, the Valleydene, had a room. The Border’s kitchens were still out of use so there was no food but the barman told me of the pub in Town Yetholm, half a mile up the road, and also that it stopped serving at eight thirty, I needed to get moving. After hasty goodbyes I went to dump my stuff at the b & b.

There were a lot of animals in the house and ponies in a field at the back, which was just as well for me. The only reason the room was available was because the couple who’d booked it had walked out in a huff saying they didn’t want to stay in a menagerie. I don’t know what they were moaning about, the giraffe was perfectly well behaved. The room was a nice spacious twin my only complaint was that the biscuits were from Tescos.

As I’d walked in the front door I’d looked into the kitchen which was through a door immediately on the right. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw, sat at the table, two people I recognized. Unfortunately I wasn’t struck dumb in amazement. As I’ve mentioned before, I had gone through other people’s accounts of their experiences on the net in the weeks leading up to my trip. While doing this I’d come across the site of a couple, lets call them Bert and Becky, who were planning to do the Way while being sponsored for charity, at about the same time as me, just doing it. What caught my attention, apart from the amount of preparation they were devoting to the expedition, was the sheer volume of stuff they were taking with them. From what I can remember this included a tent, for emergencies, possibly an emergency nap, two of those silver blanket thingies to prevent hypothermia, 10 hankies and 2 gps contraptions, in case one broke down. When they mentioned that they would be carrying a day sack each and the other three bags would be taken by a baggage carrying company I felt there was something, I couldn’t quite put my finger on, a bit odd for a walking holiday. I must admit to telling a few people I’d met on my travels about this couple and having the odd guffaw at their expense.

They’d set off exactly a week before I did and Becky kept up a running computer commentary every night which I thought very admirable. It takes a lot of effort to sit and type something readable after a hard day on the hills. These were two of the last people I would have expected to meet, I thought they’d have finished and gone home long ago, but here they were, I recognized them from their pictures. The first thing I did, of course, was think aloud with both feet in my mouth saying “What took you so long?” Which wasn’t actually meant to be a put down, it just sounded like one, but I really couldn’t believe they had taken the length of time they had. Being in a hurry to go for my meal I had a good excuse to get out of the kitchen fast.

I got to the Plough in Town Yetholm at twenty past but if they’d had any specials on I was too late so the menu was a bit limited. The steak and chips was excessively boring but I badly needed something to eat and it did the job. The bar only had a few locals in; they were quite friendly when they found out I didn’t like football and did not have a St.George’s flag attached to any vehicle. I was a little pissed off with those flags at the time, the only good thing about them was that they really pissed off the Scots and the Welsh.

The leaves are not an attempt at artistic framing of the shot, it was raining again and I was sheltering under the tree.

Breakfast in the morning was rather frosty with Bert though his misses was friendly enough. I walked up to Town Yetholm to catch the Kelso bus so I could buy a paper. I also had a chat with a local who stopped me to tell me he’d done the walk as well. It was another hot sunny day but I’d got no hill to work up a good sweat. While I was waiting at the bus shelter a girl, who I assumed must be on her way to college in Kelso, started up a conversation. The whole community really were extremely friendly. I nearly told her she shouldn’t be talking to strange men. It turned out she had a couple of kids and was going shopping. There was soon quite a gaggle of gossiping women waiting for the bus which turned up on time just to spite them. They’d all assured me it was always late on a Monday.

At Kelso there was an hour to wait for the next bus to Berwick so after a quick look at the town I decided on a taxi. I eventually found the taxi company in the pet shop. A cab was a bit extravagant but because of connecting trains it saved a lot of travelling time. At Berwick station I found John and Gary so of course chatted to them for the twenty minutes before my train. They were going the same way but had pre-booked some time ago and had to wait another hour.

After a few hours of being bored, locked in with lots of others, without the wind, sunshine or rain on my face and no aching muscles or stinging sweat in my eyes I arrived home at five to an empty house. A note in my wife’s handwriting was on the kitchen table. She’d left me

a pile of dishes to do.