And what was ahead – it was a large hill – Wideopen – the highest point of the walk and marking the halfway distance at its summit. In very hot sunshine (I had also forgotten my Tilly hat) it was tiring – John who had sauntered with us on the first day suddenly metamorphisised into a mountain goat and was romping up the hill as if it was a flat path. We all assembled at the summit for Jelly Babies (as used by champion swimmers and rugby players) to power us for the stretch downhill into Kirk Yetholm. It was difficult to tell which was the larger threat – the filthy looks we got from some fat woman behind the wheel of her car because she had to slow down for us, the fertiliser lorry that made a damn good attempt to wipe us off the planet or the field of cows with calves that the St Cuthberts Way forces you through (the sadistic path designer really needs to actually walk this). The first pint of Holy Island ale at the Border Hotel at Kirk Yetholm was a joy.
And so ended the second day – half way through and I felt like giving up.
We started the third day with hobbling to our Gutbusting class at the swimming pool then assembling at Kirk Yetholm green with lots of new walkers ready to make an assault on the hills ahead. Lynn pushing a push chair up the tarmac road hill out of Yetholm and lots of small children darting up the hill as we meandered slowly up the path pointing out badger setts. The border has a ‘Welcome to England’ and ‘Welcome to Scotland’ sign and a gate with the stern warning – ensure this gate is locked securely – harking back to Hadrian Wall days. Over the top and descend into bog and a really spooky forest – dark tunnels with occassional sunlight leading us off the main path and into hawthorn bushes we eventually found the right road and emerged with three women joining us. As we all walked into the water van stop Gordy was heard to retort – ‘no wonder you three are always late’, eyeing the heaving bosoms in skimpy tops. Hethpool for lunch was the plan and aside from watching a small dog try to get over a cattle grid, the long haul upwards was uneventful until we made the detour to the waterfall. Whereupon John exclaimed ‘Beautiful’ but his exclamation was not for the natural beauty of the eroded chasm but for the topless sunbathing women lying on rocks upstream. I’ll just eat my lunch here, John says from a better vantage point but our munching alerted them to our voyeurism and in an instance nipples were no longer being kissed by the sun.
Upward and upward passing Yeavering Bell we came across a pair of deaf and dumb birdwatchers communicating in some basic sign language to us and a pair of Geordies who on being told that they were actually going up the wrong hill as Yeavering Bell was back there, sharply told me they had a map – waving the abstract drawing from the tourism leaflet. The moors and hills were long and tedious, burnt patches for shooting, warning signs about shooting dogs on sight, and in the far distance some walkers alerting us to the fact we had so very far to go yet to get the Wooler whose absence from the landscape was conspicuous. Gliders flew above us pulled by their tug to the thermals above the hills. We reached Wooler Common to find our water van had given up on us and the ultimate insult of seeing Wooler with the way going in the opposite direction from the obvious road leading to the pub where everyone was waiting for us. The way was full of swearing now as we circumnavigated a forest to find us almost back to where we started and then followed the main path which wasn’t actually part of the way so backtracked to find it was down a wee hill over a muddy bog and the way marker was around the corner in a bush. We sat down on a bench in Wooler watching a wee boy kick a ball into a car’s side. A cheer from the half pissed crowd in the pub and a welcome pint of Secret Kingdom and so ended the third day in Wooler.
