Day 6 Wooler to Beal-ish, 20 km

The walk started a bit later than we might have liked. We had to wait until 8:30 for breakfast. But that meant we got to go for a proper coffee at Wooler’s little espresso bar that was already busy at 7:30 on a Saturday morning!

The breakfast room was on the second (to us, first to them) floor of the pub. There was a surprising number of people there. It had been a very quiet night; I had assumed - quite wrongly - that we were the only overnight guests!

We were out the door by 9:15 for a pleasant walk out of Wooler. Past the lawn bowling club and a brand new playground under construction. Lots of people walking dogs. A woman with two whippets wearing coats made out of flannel fabric for kids’ pyjamas.

One big hill at the start gave good views back over the town. There was a bit of leapfrog with two women we’d been seeing since Yetholm. And then, a while later, we met a woman who was walking up the path towards us. “Oh, “she said, “you’ve confirmed we are going the right way!” We talked for a bit, established that she was American and we are Canadian - “we are so so sorry….” Very nice not to be reading much news here.

We walked with her back down towards her husband. He seemed perturbed that she’d gone back to check their direction. “I was trying to call you! My map is working!!!”

Lots of yellow fields and stone walls, which feel different than the ones in Yorkshire . Less precise, maybe? Lots of skylarks (we learned from the Merlin app). Something that smelled really bad (in an extremely beautiful place) and drew a gazillion talking crows.

Great bench stop across from a house that offered water to walkers. Apparently there used to be a carved wooden statue of St Cuthbert beside the bench, but it was not there today. We are seeing signs everywhere warning (including on a fence at that spot) about damage from Storm Arwen, which happened in 2021. Someone yesterday told us his power was out for days and that the damage in Northumberland had been huge, “but the storm didn’t even make the papers! If it had been in London…” Maybe the statue was damaged in the storm?

The big deal today was “St Cuthberts cave,” where his body was carried by monks in 875 to escape Norse invaders at Lindisfarne - or - where he himself lived as an anchorite (a word we just looked up, which refers to a particular kind of religious hermit… the Wikipedia entry has a surprising gender angle), before he moved to Lindisfarne. It was a fairly open cave, an open space under an overhang. Pretty big. Easy to stand up in. Lots of people there, including a group barbecuing hamburgers - despite many signs prohibiting fires and barbecues. We took a look but did not stay long.

And then we were up and over two smaller hills and then a view of the sea — and of the Holy Isle (Lindisfarne). Everyone really does call it that!

The walk down to the village of Fenwick and the road was way easier than yesterday’s descent. At the bottom: a little coffee shop that just opened two weeks ago! I took the risk of a late (4 pm, we’ll soon see how that works out!) flat white. E was wiser with a decaf americano and a very cute container of honey-flavoured ice cream. One of the two owners was a retired college teacher turned coffee roaster.

We had two choices after coffee and 18 km. Stick to the path, which goes about 4 more km to the causeway and sands where we will cross to Lindisfarne tomorrow, and then walk another 3km inland along a road to the inn where we are staying tonight. Or walk 3 km up a quiet lane directly to the inn. We took option B. Tomorrow we will probably just walk the three km along the road to join the causeway. But if we are keen, we could backtrack to the coffee shop and then do the bit of the path that we missed today.

We are staying in what must be an old coaching inn that is currently right on the A1, a busy road that runs north/south. Nothing near but a gas station and a bus stop. The pub at dinner was full of people we have been seeing for the past few days. There was some hobbling, and there were sunburns. The pub had a separate room for people with dogs!Read more