It's difficult to say that I woke up in any meaningful sense, because I'd spent so little of the night actually asleep. However, by 5am it was no longer necessary for me to close my eyes again and try to drift off, and so I slipped out of the spider infested sleeping bag and got into my sandles. I'd slept fully dressed, so there was no need to dig around in my clothes bag for T shirt and shorts.
I nipped outside to the loo, and then in again pretty speedily. At just after 5am there naturally wasn't any sun, but it was certainly dry and the wind didn't feel particularly cold.
I'd saved a cheese and onion pastie for breakfast on this most auspicious of mornings, but now that the morning had come I was too excited to eat it. I had a little water left in my water bottle, but I was too anxious to be off to spend the short time that would have been involved in boiling it for a drink. In any event, I thought I might well need to drink it on the way down, as there was still at least one significant hill before me, and there were signs that the morning could soon grow warm and sunny. Dave had offered me some of his Hen Hole water the night before, but I hadn't liked to take it since I hadn't made the effort to share the burden of going down to collect it.
Somehow I managed to spend almost an hour doing nothing but packing up my kit and putting it back into my bag, but by just before 6am I was ready to go. Dave was up by that time, but he was planning to leave a little later than me. He popped outside, and I took the opportunity to get a few further pictures of the hut just before I left.
After that I got into my rucksack, and Dave took my picture just before I left. For me it was an exciting, emotional moment, and it was difficult to grasp the reality that I was about to take the first steps towards the end of the 19 day journey.
At 6.05am I set off towards The Schil, the last really significant hill on the journey, and although I couldn't see the sun it was surely coming up, as everything around me became more clearly visible. Already the views towards the hills behind me were gorgeous, the tops bathing once again in pools of silvery cloud.
I knew that I had only 10 pictures left to take, and so I had to be careful not to use them all at the beginning of the walk. Still, I took a picture back towards the mountain hut from my journey towards The Schil. It's difficult to see, but the hut is on top of the small mound to the right, and over to the left of the picture is the Hen Hole.
A little further on was another magnificent sight.
As I'd expected, the day grew warmer as I pushed on up The Schil, and when I got to the top I stopped and changed out of my Ron Hills into shorts. I was making good time, and everything around me was now suffused with golden light from the risen sun. I looked back from small crags near the top, and shed tears of joy and wonder at the beauty surrounding me.
Soon after the descent from The Schil a choice of routes occurs. The real route continues over White Law - not as high as The Schil, but still involving a significant pull to the top - but there's a low level escape route down the valley for those who are too tired to contend with more hills, or injured. I was going to do the real, high level route, and I was quite concerned to make sure that no navigational error should take me the wrong way this morning, as today I had no time to waste recovering my mistakes.
The views were increasingly spectacular the further I went, and I thanked someone or something a hundred times for my enormous good luck in having such fantastic weather for the last three days. The experience of walking through the Cheviots would have been entirely different, and devoid of all the awe inspired by the magnificence of my surroundings, if I'd had to trudge through them in thick mist or rain, as many thousands have had to do before me. I thought back to the ways in which my intended schedule had changed since my holiday began, and not for the first time during the walk it felt as though someone had been watching over and helping me. It may well be simple coincidence, but at moments like that my thoughts always turn to my grandmother.
At the foot of The Schil, and before the two routes divide, was a signpost beside a stile in the wall. I looked up at it, and it pointed to the right, saying "Kirk Yetholm - 4.5 miles". I actually sobbed briefly with joy and relief when I saw it - both joy and relief to be coming to the end of the long, long walk - and it was a couple of minutes before I could go on. They were very happy minutes, though :-)
Both the real and the alternative route turned out to be clearly marked, and so I needn't have worried about getting lost. 5 minutes after crossing the stile I was on my way towards White Law. Along the way I came across what must surely be the most beautiful pasture a cow has ever grazed...
...and when I got to the foot of the steep part I decided I should have a picture of the last hill :-)
After White Law the route is mainly downhill. I thought my navigational exertions were largely over, but there was a sticky point not long after descending from the summit, when I almost followed the wrong path to the left and went down the wrong valley, too soon. Fortunately, though, some instinct that I'd been attempting to develop over the preceding 18 days nagged at me that I was going wrong. I checked and re-checked, and eventually realised that there was another half a K to come along the path before it was time for me to turn down.
As I descended from the last hills to the valley floor I saw people out riding with dogs, and thought they'd chosen a perfect morning to get out for a hack. It wasn't until I was almost at the bottom that the penny finally dropped and I realised I was watching a hunt.
At a cattle grid at the bottom of the valley the real route meets up with the alternative route, and both progress into Kirk Yetholm, a kilometer away up a pretty little road on a hill. In keeping with my performance since starting at Edale 18 days earlier I made a last map reading error and ended up having to cross the little river too soon. I found my way across with some difficulty by jumping from rock to rock, and it struck me as odd at the time that there was no sort of bridge or crossing at such an auspicious point. When I looked around for the cattle grid and couldn't see it I realised I'd gone a bit wrong, but 5 minutes later I was in the right place and starting the last walk up the little hill.
Hunt supporters were out in small groups along the road, and they smiled at me as I passed. One of them asked me if I'd had a nice walk, and I told him I'd just finished the Pennine Way :-) A couple of minutes later I rounded a bend to the left, and a small, white cottaged village came into view between the hawthorns in the hedge.
Less than 5 minutes later, at almost precisely 9am, I walked down the hill to the village green, and on the other side I saw the Border Hotel, which is the official end of the Pennine Way. There's also a signpost marking the point, and I walked across and gave it a surreptitious hug. There was no sign of anyone else there, and I was suddenly unsure about what to do. I walked over to a bench on the green, and took off my rucksack. After that I walked over to the Border Hotel to see whether there were any signs of life inside. That seemed unlikely at 9 o'clock in the morning, but stranger things have happened so it seemed to be worth a look. Nothing was moving, though, and so I returned to the bench and finished the last of my water. I'd had to ration it on the way down, but there turned out to be a little more than I'd imagined.
It soon occurred to me that I should ring my family to tell them I'd finished, but initially I wasn't able to find anyone in. Eventually I did get hold of them, though, and chatted for 10 minutes or so. At that stage I saw movement over at the pub, and so I went over and looked again through the window. There was someone cleaning inside, and I tapped discreetly in the hope of attracting their attention. A young woman came to the door, opened it and clearly recognised me as a Pennine Way finisher. She smiled, but told me that the pub wouldn't be open until 11am. When I told her I'd walked 270 miles to get there, and that my bus was leaving at 10.25, she was polite but unmoved, and said 11am was the earliest that anything would be available. So that was that.
I'd been keeping an eye out for Dave, and at 9.30am I finally saw him appear at the top of the little road leading down to the green. I put away my phone and walked over to greet him. It was hard to believe that this marked the end of such a long journey, and I told him the sad news about the pub. We decided that in those circumstances we'd have to defer the celebration until our arrival at Kelso. Two men then pulled up in a car, and got out. I went over and asked if they'd mind taking our picture in front of the hotel, explaining that we'd just finished the Pennine Way. They were very happy to oblige, and quite impressed, as they were there to do some walking themselves.
We decided to have a quick look around to find out whether there might be somewhere else - a cafe, perhaps - where we could get a coffee, and so we asked a woman who was just emerging from her house. When we explained that we were waiting for a bus to Kelso she said she was about to go there herself, and offered to drive us! Half an hour later we were in Kelso, and shortly afterwards we were sitting inside in a very nice cafe enjoying breakfast. I had some sort of toasted pannini with cheese and things in it, and a large mug of tea. It was the first hot food I'd had for about 36 hours, and the first hot drink since lunchtime the day before. Not long after that we decided to get the early bus to Berwick-on-Tweed, where we bought our train tickets home and then finally celebrated the completion of the walk with cider. I enjoyed the cider, but it would have been nicer to have celebrated with a pint at the Border Hotel, as one is meant to do.
Well, that was the end of it :-)
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