A perfect walking day

It was a perfect day for our planned walk - sunshine and a cooling breeze. We thought we’d make the most of our (slightly) improved fitness from walking every day in Mallorca.

We drove up the valley to the Trows Roadend, where there used to be the notorious Slimefoot pub, where legend has it whisky smugglers would meet. We set off steeply up The Street, an ancient drove road coming over the border from Scotland where, in the past, cattle were brought over the Cheviots to the English markets. Sheep have grazed here for over 600 years, the two main breeds being the white-faced Cheviots and the Scottish Blackface.

It was a long steep pull up from the road, then a nice walk over undulating tussocky hills till we reached the point where The Street crosses the Pennine Way. Just before that we were lucky enough to see a family of Cheviot feral goats.

Years ago we took the Street over to the Kale valley into Scotland, up over Whitton Moor and down to the farm where I spend my childhood, before continuing on to the farm where Mr C’s sister lived. We stayed the night and walked back via the Pennine Way from Kirk Yetholm.

This time we turned right and followed the Pennine Way as it climbed up two very steep hills before we crossed into Scotland and battled our way up to Windy Gyle. It was very steep. (I didn’t go last year as my plantar fasciitis was too sore but we do try to meet the challenge of this walk once a year.)

We met a 55 year old male who said he was celebrating the first day of his retirement walking in the hills. He said he was listening to the audiobook “Money” in homage to Martin Amis who recently died. He said the frequency of the bluetooth kept away the flies. Despite not having Bluetooth (we listened to the larks, curlews and a distant cuckoo instead of Amis) we had no bother with flies. The breeze kept them away. I told him Mr C was about to reach 80 and he said he hoped he’d still be capable of such a walk then.

We stopped for our sandwich at Russell’s Cairn, the top, then the last third was all downhill back to the car. We walked for 4 hours and had half an hour break. The ascents were over 2000 feet, we walked 8.5 miles and I did 23,173 steps. I must admit we are quite pleased with ourselves though how I’ll get off the sofa to make the meal tonight I’m not sure.

The middle right picture shows the last two hills with the cairn just visible on the right hill. The feral goats are in on the left.

I still haven’t got the tickets. Watching Malpractice last night was not really a de-stressing series. #3 daughter advises “Colin from Accounts”.