Another good Cheviot walk

I only had 5 hours sleep last night so wasn’t feeling fighting fit for what Mr C said would be a 7 mile walk. But I decided I’d just have to walk off the lethargy so we set off up the valley by car. We had a lengthy detour as there was a diversion due to road works. It meant we went via the half marathon route I ran almost 40 years ago. I wouldn’t like to do that now. Though in fact the walk turned out to be the same length.

We headed north from Barrowburn on the east side of the stream. It was cloudy, 14 degrees with a following wind to help us up the steep track. Some of the forest we’d walked through last time we came had been cut, and some fit young men were spraying the new trees for weavils. We debated whether to take the longer route through the next forest, or walk to Usewayford, an isolated shepherd’s house where a friend of my Dad’s lived in the 1960’s, and find a path shown on the map, a shorter route. The forest track was good so we opted for that though it was boring wending its way uphill for around 1.5 miles. We took the turnoff down to Davidson’s Linn, a pretty waterfall I’d not seen before, went past the stell (the circular shelter for sheep in winter storms) then up Salters Road which was used in times past to take salt across the border into Scotland. The OS map showed 2 possible routes back via Usewayford, but there was no sign of either, so we had to turn back. Then we took Salters Road a bit further where it met a track coming off the border ridge. We could see Kings Seat and Cheviot, the highest hill in the region, But the track was very boggy so again we turned back and took the tedious route down through the forest. We could have gone back to the car the same way we’d come up but I spotted a different, though longer route which would give better views. It was really nice, taking an unmade road part of the way to Rowhope (last week’s walk) and up onto the Border Rideout. We past the stone at Murder Cleugh. It said that in 1610 Robert Lumsden had murdered Isabella Sudden. He got sentenced to 3 months. A quick blow took us over the open top and steeply down to the car.

13 miles, 30909 steps.