I was up at 0615, and away by 0725. Considering that all I really needed to do in the morning was get a wash, pack up the rucksack, fill my waterbottle and make a flask, I'm never sure why it takes me so long to get out, but maybe it's a woman thing :-) Anyway, all my kit had dried perfectly in the drying room overnight, and I was now confident that I should have clean T shirts for today and tomorrow, and clean undies, long trousers and long sleeved top to change into at Kirk Yetholm for the journey home. I saw the Warden briefly as I was leaving, and then I was on my way.
Even at that time it was already a beautiful morning. There was a quick walk back along the road to meet the Way at a junction of paths again, and that was followed by a climb described in the National Trail Guide as, "...steep and straight, an excellent start because it takes an uncompromising line and wastes no time in gaining height and leaving the forest behind".
That was certainly true, and after one of the steepest and most sustained pulls upwards in the whole walk I emerged about 30 minutes later from a small scramble to the top of Byrness Hill.
The views there were breathtaking in every direction...
...and I stopped for several minutes to try to absorb them.
I could see the path walked into the grass on the hillside beside me, and I could follow its trail all the way along the ridge to the left, and so I set off to follow it.
Although it was sunny the wind was sharp, and I spent the first couple of hours in my fleece with my fleecy neck gaiter and warm Lowe Alpine hat. The views were amazing everywhere I looked, and I could see easily over the ridge into Scotland now, where distant hills were bathed in pools of milky cloud.
The gate into Scotland eventually arrived, and I stopped to take a photo.
The light was so bright that it was a great day for shadow photo's...
...but as usual I found it difficult to get my legs in properly.By about 1pm I was beginning to tire a little, so I stopped for a snack and lay back against the heather to admire the stunning views.
I'd passed Dave having a cigarette break a little earlier, and now he passed me with another walker as I sipped my coffee and ate my pastie. The other walker was just out for the day, and carried nothing but a bottle of water with him.
I stopped for a picture of heather against stone...
...and then for one of a sheep cuddling up against another.
At some stage during the long and steady haul towards Windy Gyle I glanced back and saw a really striking image of interlocking hills, and was reminded of learning about glaciation during 4th form geography lessons with Mr Benson, at school. In honour of Mr Benson - the only teacher who ever managed to make geography even half interesting to me - I hauled off my sack, opened it up to dig out a canister and changed the film in my camera. If you're there, Mr Benson - this picture is for you :-)
Eventually I arrived on the top of Windy Gyle, and before I could sit down for a break a couple of other walkers were pointing East, and telling me that the Pennine Way went that way. I explained that I was stopping for a look, and wandered round to the other side of the huge mound of stones called Russell's Cairn. Once there I found a couple of older walkers, who'd had many years experience of walking in this area. They'd seen many Pennine Way walkers come and go, in all sorts of states and conditions ranging from smiling and energetic to bleeding and nearing despair. They said I looked pretty good, considering, but like quite a lot of other people they remarked upon the size of my pack...
It was great to take a break and chat, but I couldn't relax because I knew that there was still a long way ahead of me to the bothy. I told the walkers where I was going and they said it was possible to see it as a small white dot in the distance. Now that I've been there I realise they must have had some other hut in mind, as the hut near the top of Auchope Cairn is not white, but nonetheless it was extremely exciting at the time to look over to the small dot in the distance, the point from which I expected to start the end of my walk down into Kirk Yetholm in the morning.
I'd arranged to meet Dave at Clennell Street for a final decision about whether we were going on, and so I got my things together again and continued. From Windy Gyle to Clennell Street is less than a couple of Ks, and so it wasn't long before I got there and found Dave arranged on the ground enjoying a rest.
We were both relieved to have made such good progress up to this stage, because had the weather been different then we could well have encountered much boggier and slower conditions at a number of points along the way. As things were it was only 3pm, and Dave said he thought we should press on all the way to Kirk Yetholm. I told him there was no way I was even going to consider doing that, but he was quite persistent and didn't seem to want to let the idea go. I asked him why he was suddenly talking about walking all the way to Kirk Yetholm when he'd been planning to camp at Clennell Street since the start of the walk, and he said it might have something to do with the England/Poland match which he hoped to be able to watch at the bottom, in the Border Hotel... I said it was up to him what he decided to do, but that I was staying at the 18 mile bothy Come What May :-) He said he'd see how he felt when he got there, and a few minutes later we both pushed on again.
Dave put on a real spurt at this stage, clearly doing his best to get to the bothy as early as possible in order to leave the door open for a descent to Kirk Yetholm. Rather foolishly I followed on just as quickly behind for a couple of miles, but I soon grew tired again and it occurred to me that it was daft to be sprinting when within a couple of hours I'd be stopping for the night. I sat down on the path, took off my pack and got out my coffee and GORP. 10 minutes later I moved on, but at a much slower pace now.
The ascent to the top of Auchope Cairn is about 6.5K from Clennell Street, and it seemed to go on forever. Just before it is a junction of fences, where those who decide to climb The Cheviot turn right whilst those proceeding along the main route go left, and onto Auchope Cairn. The Cheviot is not actually on the main route, but it involves a relatively short round trip of 2.5 miles to get from the route to the top and back, and earlier in the walk I'd intended to climb it. I'd heard mixed reports since then about whether it was worth doing or not, though, and the experienced couple I'd met on top of Windy Gyle earlier had more or less said that the only reason to go up would be to say that one had done it, as the top is so broad and flat that there's very little to see. If there'd been any residual doubt left in my mind it was dispersed by the briefest consideration of how tired I was at this stage in the walk, and as there was no real benefit to be gained I turned happily to the left and proceeded towards the top of Auchope Cairn.
The way to the top passes over a little boardwalk, and as I walked over it I glanced to the right and saw my reflection - including legs - displayed so clearly against the grass that I whipped out the camera and took a picture. This turned out to be the best shadow picture I've ever taken, and my favourite picture from the whole trip. I think it makes me look like Peter Pan, or maybe Tinkerbell :-)
The wind was very powerful on top of the hill, and Dave was there, waiting to take a photograph. He got one of me with my eyes closed against a large cairn...
...and I took several more of the views, which were again fantastic.
On the second picture it's just possible to make Dave out on his way down the hill towards the left. The 18 mile bothy is the indistinct little black blob on the top of the first rise toward the left of the picture, with a path leading up to it. Unfortunately, the photograph doesn't give any real indication of the steepness of the descent.
After that I followed Dave down the hill towards the bothy. It turned out to be the descent from hell. The contours are shown right at the top of the page in the National Trail Guide and so it's easy to overlook them in one's eagerness to turn over, but this is Very, Very Steep, so those of you who may be carrying a heavy pack - be ready for it. My knees have still not forgiven me...
I almost cried with relief when I finally arrived at the hut. I'd noticed as I climbed up towards it that there was already somebody there, but it turned out to be a couple with their two, elderly dogs, who'd stopped for a look on their way to The Cheviot. I took my pack inside and sat it proprietorily on one of the benches which ran round three of the sides, and then I went back out to lie in the sun against the hut. I'd walked about 18 miles today. My feet were killing me, and I felt as though I'd been kicked all over by a horse, so even though my efforts were now over for the night I was still a long way from relaxed and comfortable. I got out my water bottle and took 2 Neurofen and 2 Panadol Extra in the hope of taking the edge off my various aches and pains, and settled back to munch my way through half a bag of GORP with my remaining coffee.
From outside the hut I took another picture, this time of the hill leading back up the way I'd just been. Again, this doesn't really capture an impression of the steepness, but it paints a clear picture of conditions on the hill at that stage in the day. By then it was coming up for 6pm, but the sun was still bright and high in the sky.
Incredibly, as it seemed to me, Dave now started talking again about continuing to Kirk Yetholm. He said he thought it would only be about 5 or 6 miles, and he felt sure we could do it in a couple of hours. I told him it was almost 8 miles on the map by the high level route - which was the one I was going to follow - and that there was no way I was suddenly going to be able to walk 8 miles with that pack over hills in the space of 2 hours. I'd not been able to do it at any stage in the preceeding 3 weeks, and I was entirely certain it wasn't going to happen now. In any event, I told him, I was looking forward to my descent early in the morning. I was planning to leave at 6am and hoping to get to Kirk Yetholm by 9.30am. I wanted to enjoy it, and not to spoil my trip by crawling into Kirk Yetholm on my hands and knees at 9pm tonight, just after the pub finished serving food. I suggested that Dave should go ahead tonight and get the beers in: he could meet me with them as I arrived in the village in the morning. He said he'd take a break for an hour or so and then raise the subject again. I told him he was entirely welcome to make whatever decision was the right one for him, but that if he asked me to walk down into Kirk Yetholm again that night I'd hit him...
The walkers with the dogs went on, and I went inside to unpack my things and lay out my sleeping pad and bag.
Here's a picture of the hut, for anyone who may be interested, or is thinking of staying there.
Conditions inside are primitive in the extreme, but it's a secure, dry shelter, and that's all it purports to be. A sign on the wall explained that the hut was erected in 1988 in memory of Stephen Lancaster. I believe from what I've read that it replaced an old railway carriage, that was previously there.
An hour or so later Dave announced that he was going to stay, but that he'd need to get some water. He decided to descend to the Hen Hole, a 10,000 year old hanging valley half a K away to the east, and so he collected together his empty bottles, dressed in his waterproofs for warmth and set off. I fiddled about with my kit, and for almost the first time in the entire trip read carefully through the description of the following day's walk in the National Trail Guide. I absolutely had to be in Kirk Yetholm in time to get the 10.25am bus back to real life, and I needed to be sure that I'd understood exactly what I'd need to do in order to make that happen.
Within an hour Dave returned with his water, and I offered to boil some for him so that he could have a hot drink. We found some instant tea sachets left at the bothy by some earlier occupant, and identified Dave's smallest water bottle as a suitable receptacle, since he'd sent his cooking and eating kit home a week or so earlier. He later said it was the nicest cup of tea that he'd had on the entire trip :-)
Just before lying down to try to sleep I took a look outside..
...and after that I went in and lay down my bench to try to work out how I might be able to get some sleep on a couple of planks of wood about 2.5 feet wide.
For almost 270 miles Dave had carried a wind-up radio, but he said it had ceased to work very early in the trip. I'm not sure why he'd kept hold of it, but now he took it out of his pack, swapped in the batteries from his GPS and gave it another try. It worked! So we were able to lie on our plank-like benches listening to the England/Poland match on the radio. It was a surreal experience :-) Rather than lie in complete darkness we lit a small candle that had again been left behind by some previous occupant, and hoped that it would burn safely. At 8.45pm, this was the earliest night I've had for some considerable time.
It was very difficult to sleep on the bench, partly because it was so narrow and partly because the problems I always had with discomfort when using the T-Rest were exacerbated by the fact that I was now lying on hard wood, rather than the slightly softer ground. Tiredness eventually enabled me to drop into a semi sleep, but what felt like a very short time later I felt something ticking the bridge of my nose, and when I opened my eyes I saw a spider on my face. I wouldn't want to hurt a spider, but at the same time I definitely wouldn't want it on my face - in fact, anywhere near any part of my body would be pushing things quite a lot - and I got such a fright that I squealed in alarm, jumped backwards and fell off the bench and onto the ground. Feedback from the other side of the hut indicated that Dave had enjoyed this, but that's just blokes for you ;-)
I was now paranoid about the idea that my sleeping bag was filling up with spiders. In the light of the candle I could see them in their hundreds patrolling more or less every inch of the hut, but there wasn't anything I could do. I have to say that if there's ever cause for me to stay up there again then I'd actually camp outside, unless the weather precluded it. It would be many times more comfortable than trying to sleep on the bench, and my tent is not yet infested by spiders.
I know that at some stage I did actually sleep again, but periods of sleep were brief and interspersed with much longer periods of wide-eyed wakefulness. This was undoubtedly, and by a very significant margin, the most uncomfortable night I've ever spent, and I'm not in a hurry to do it again. Having said that, of course, I'm glad I've done it once, just for the bizarre experience :-)
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