Day 20 - Byrness to Cocklawfoot

Today was the first half of the final 'big one', the high section from Bynress to Kirk Yetholm through the Cheviot hills, which real he-men walk in a single day. The company who we booked our B&Bs through splits this section into two parts, breaking the full 27 mile segment into a 16 mile and an 11 mile day. The problem is that there's nowhere to stay along the way, so the slightly unsatisfactory solution is to pick the walker up from the closest road access point, and dropping off at the same point the next day. In practice that's over 2 miles away, and 300m down from the ridge where the path is at that point, so it means extra miles and extra climbing.

The start of the day is the 200m steep ascent straight out of Byrness with no warm-up, which is unkind first thing in the morning. This leads up to Byrness Hill, the first summit with a name and a cairn, and giving some wonderful views back across the Kielder Forest. This is the first time we've seen Kielder Water, the huge man-made reservoir which was constructed in the late 1970s and first flooded in 1982.

View back to Kielder Water

The surprising thing today was that that initial climb out of Byrness was the hardest ascent of the day. Although the path crosses numerous summits between 500m and 600m it's really just a series of fairly gentle rises and dips, with only an occasional short steep section. Combined with today's fair weather this really made the walk much easier than we had imagined.

Once up on the ridge the path faces onto the Otterburn military training, the largest firing range in the UK, and according to last night's B&B owners one which is usually active. Apparently it's not uncommon to see tanks up on the hilltops, or mortar rounds exploding on the hillsides, or soldiers in full camouflage hiding in the heather (well, you're not really supposed to see them of course). Today we saw nothing, apart from some stern warnings about straying into the training area or picking anything military up. I see the same warnings around the Penhale training camp in Cornwall, but I've never actually seen any training taking place there. Sounds a bit more serious here.

Warnings at Ravens Knowe

It was cold last night. The weather forecast said it would go down to 0C at ground level, so it would have been even lower up here. Certainly some of the pools in amongst the peat bogs had a thin skin of ice this morning.

Water boatman goes ice skating

This section of the Pennine Way sees a welcome return of the stone flagstones and wooden duckboards that we had on some of the worse sections in the previous couple of weeks. Walking over a long stretch of duckboards that skirt Ogre Hill we had the first remarkable experience of the day. A Red Grouse was standing on the boards about 50m in front of us. I got the camera out, imagining that the Grouse would take flight pretty soon. Nothing further from the truth. In fact it strutted confidently towards us as I took picture after picture, until it was almost at arm's length. I assume this was a territorial claim of some sort, and it was challenging us, as it was also sending out a bizarre repeated call, different from the calls we've heard when Grouse take flight in panic.

Are you looking at my bird ?

Another couple of miles on we reached Chew Green, a large collection of Roman forts significantly north of Hadrian's Wall. Although it's possible to get within half a mile of here by road, the site hasn't been subject to much archaeological exploration, and absolutely no 'consolidation' has been done, so there is no tourist presence at all. In fact there's really very little to see from ground level apart from the ditches and ramparts. It's difficult to imagine that this was once a significant station for Roman soldiers, and later the site of the busy medieval village of Kemylpethe, where peddlars and itinerant Scottish workers would stay while conducting business in the local taverns or passing by on their way to England [The Border Line, by Eric Robson].

Chew Green - site of the Ad Fines Roman camp

One of the reasons for this being such a busy social hub in the past is that it is adjacent to the path of Dere Street, which began as a Roman road between York and Bo'ness in Scotland. The road continued to be used after the Romans left the region, and is said to have been in use as the main route between Scotland and England until the end of the 19th century. In other areas some parts of Dere Street eventually become the current A1 and A68.

Dere Street near Black Halls

Two or three miles further on and the path reaches the first mountain refuge of the day, just before the climb up to Lamb Hill. The shelter smelt suspiciously rank inside, but the wooden staging at front made a suitable stop for lunch. Strangely the visitors book seems to have become a repository of fantasies for some walkers. One story claimed that the writer had been chased by pagans asking after the "temple of Margaret" and had run out of food and water. Ah well, that was from last November. I expect he's been sacrificed by now, so no point worrying about it.

Lamb Hill mountain shelter

Next remarkable sight of the day, where the Pennine Way is right alongside the Scottish border at Mozie Law (hill). We suddenly saw a wild mountain goat grazing in the heather on the Scottish side. We stopped for a good 20 minutes, thankfully downstream of the goat, and it slowly ambled closer to us, with another adult and, eventually, a kid. It got within maybe 50m of us before slowing grazing off away again, not in any sort of hurry.

Mountain goats at Mozie Law

Along today's route various places there are 6 pointed metal stars on posts. Surely there's a good explanation for these, maybe marking a boundary of some sort, but in practice they have become the home of walker graffiti, scratched into the metal, and, if the dates on this example at Foul Step are to believed, some of it dating back to the 1960s.

Foul Step mystery star

The path now climbs up to the highest summit of the day at Windy Gyle (619m) where countless previous walkers have constructed a circular walled shelter next to the trig point.

Windy Gyle

Just another mile or so past Windy Gyle we reached the path crossroads where today's half portion of the Pennine Way ended, and we descended to reach Cocklawfoot, where the B&B owners came and picked us up. I have a strong feeling that we could have finished the whole 27 mile Byress to Kirk Yetholm section in a single day, but "someone" wasn't having any of it.

Waiting at Cocklawfoot farm

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