Day 7 Beal to Lindisfarne, 7 km

Short walk for our last day, but it was something! We didn’t bother going back to Fenwick to pick up the actual St Cuthbert’s Way path, and set out from the inn to walk directly to the causeway - E said St Cuthbert would have done the same.

We left around 10:30, so we could cross to the island when the tide was well out. By 11:30 we had put on all our accessible layers (it was chilly even before our feet got wet) and taken off our shoes and had started on the 4 km route across the mud and sand to Lindisfarne. The path is dead straight, marked by tall poles sunk into the mud. Sometimes we were walking on sand, sometimes in squelchy mud, and sometimes through water. It seemed like boots outnumbered bare feet in the prints on the sand. We - or maybe I should just say I - had been trepidatious. Mostly about potential indecipherable squishiness and how cold the water would be. But the mud was only sometimes squishy and not terrible, and the water was not as cold as I had thought it would be. It took about an hour to cross, and we only started getting really cold about 3/4 of the way across. There lots of other people out there. including people walking long-haired dogs. That must have fun to clean up!

On the other side we put our shoes back on to walk another few hundred metres, and we were done. There was no end marker as there often is, but there was a good coffee shop with decent scones and eventually the inn where we are staying.

The Holy Isle is tiny and beautiful and has great stories - St Cuthbert’s being just one of them. On a bank holiday weekend it was packed! The big draws are the ruins of a medieval priory and a castle. We visited the first, but not the latter - it’s perched on a rock a kilometer from the village and we were too cold to walk out there. Today was the first truly overcast day of our trip! It was about 11 degrees and really windy.

The priory was huge. A monastery started in the 7thC, was abandoned in the 9thC because of Viking raids, and then eventually the monks came back, and a church was built in the mid-1100s (note passive voice - I’m not sure by whom), the priory expanded, there were wars between England and Scotland that meant the priory had to be fortified, etc. All of this led to the 13th century floor plan that we see in ruins today. In a corner of a grassy lawn that was, apparently, behind the kitchen and where farming activities would have taken place, was a fantastic statue of St Cuthbert. Really amazing. It was a highlight of the day.

We wandered around and did proper tourist things, like visiting the priory museum and tasting mead! Later, we went downstairs to the pub for a pint and fish and chips for dinner.

After dinner we walked over to see what it looks like by the causeway when the tide is out. The path we followed was underwater - but, more impressively, so was about a third of the causeway - the road that comes to the island. So, today if you were here after the end of the “safe crossing” time (posted everywhere) of 5:45, you were here for the night!

Tomorrow we have to get a taxi to get the train. Earliest possible time is 10:15 because of the tides!

I had thought I would keep walking north up the coast on my own after E goes back to Edinburgh tomorrow. There are several long coastal paths, and I had planned to go 5 days, from here to North Berwick, a fantastic town about half an hour by train east of Edinburgh. But I decided to change plans, go back to Edinburgh too, and then do my walks from there - maybe from Edinburgh to North Berwick or further along to Dunbar on the John Muir Way (he was born northwest of Edinburgh), partly to cut back on the accommodation bill, and also to take advantage of the city more.

This has been a great walk! I knew it would have good scenery but it went beyond my expectations there. People asked us today what our favourite part was and I think it was the weather. It was so magically good.

This would be an excellent walk for someone new to long distance paths. Not too hard but challenging enough. And beautiful. I think most people do it in 6 days. Many do it in 5. We took 7, which was perfect for us. Biggest challenge here is the cost and limited accommodation in some places.

Tomorrow we’ll meet Grace and Holly the dog in Berwick-upon-Tweed, drink good coffee, walk on top of the city walls and around the town and then take the train back to Scotland.

We are here for another week!

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