Day 5 Yetholm to Wooler, 21 km

An excellent walk today. Sunny but not too hot. Hills, but not too many and mostly done by lunchtime. Friendly people, but not too many of them either. Dry feet on ground that is usually wet (good for us, not for the planet). A shady lunch place. A rewilding project of some sort. And more great views.

We crossed the border into England this morning. Different pound notes, different accents, different rules about access to the countryside (Scotland’s are more permissive). A lot of the path on the English side was through Northumberland National Park. It seemed like there were lots of places where they’d planted trees. And one carefully fenced off hillside had more varied vegetation than anything we’ve seen. A biodiversity project? Normally the hills are bare of everything but grass, kept in check by sheep. How long ago were there trees here? The fenced off hillside was covered in saplings. Just one side of one hill but a very cool intervention. I want to see it in ten ten years.

We had our first close up cow encounter this morning. A group of about 20 cows and calves were huddled around a stile we had to go over. Rule #1 for walking near cows - don’t get between them and their calves. Easier said than done. There had been a few people in front of us, and we figured they’d gone through okay. Then two women walking towards us (one wearing a Canada sweater from her sister in Ottawa) told us they just tried to give the cows a wide berth. As we got closer, a few of the cows just stared, some of the calves ran away, and we talked nicely to them. Stressy but fine. You don’t want to end up in a story in the Guardian!

After a stunning morning it was hard to imagine that the afternoon could be better, but it was! Spectacular views, and great paths. No asphalt. Big colour contrasts- green and yellow against the blue sky. There was just one climb that took us up to moorland. Heather as far as you could see. And then really pleasant walking across the moor for a while before the long descent down to the town. Of course you see it ages before you get there! The last 2 or 3 kilometres were as annoying as they usually are.

We spend a lot of time making up stories about the walkers off in the distance. Today the joke was - given how slow we are going - that we would catch up to the couple way ahead of us on the moor and to the young person who had passed us hours before, whom we thought we could maybe see in the distance. And the bigger joke was that we did. E very pleased to be able to return to its rightful owner a little tube of Carmex that had been dropped on the path. We are still feeling bad for the person whose prescription glasses were lying on the path a few days ago.

Once we got to Wooler we had a beer in the pub where we are staying. The room is not fancy but the price is much closer to what we are used to (£75). And then we got a pizza across the street for supper, half of which will be tomorrow’s lunch.

Tomorrow’s the last full day. 19 km to Fenwick and then either 2 (via a small road) or 5 (following the St Cuthberts way and then backtracking a bit) more kilometres to tomorrow’s accommodation, which is not on the route.Leia mais