Captain's Log

Winshields

I scraped ice off my tent this morning. Cold nights had soon become the standard for this trek. After packing up I escaped to the campsite’s kitchen area to brew a coffee and prepare myself a bowl of muesli. A male teacher and a woman were in the kitchen having a discussion when I entered. The woman was walking the Hadrian’s Wall Path for a ‘burns’ charity. Apparently, she’d been burnt in an accident as a child. She said it was so hot yesterday that even her burnt skin got sunburnt.  Her challenge was walking Hadrian's Wall from east to west. On the first day she and her partner had walked 16 miles from Newcastle. She then appeared to struggle as the terrain got hillier and her walking partner had ended up carrying her rucksack as well as his own. Charity work for the charity worker I suppose.     

It was another glorious day. It didn’t take long to regain the height I’d lost yesterday when I'd descended to the campsite from Winshield Crags. Today’s walk would be rather exciting since most of my day would be spent on an alternative route to that of the official Pennine Way path. The official route continued westwards along Hadrian’s Wall passing through the impressive Walltown crags as well as visiting Thirlwall Castle. It then headed south over field and fell to a wildcamp on Lambley Common. There’s certainly merit in doing the official route. Hadrian’s Wall around Walltown Crags is very impressive, as is the castle. The problem was that I’d walked this stretch so often that I felt like I wanted to do something different. My alternative would branch away from the wall and follow the Haltwhistle Burn to the town of Haltwhistle where I would restock my supplies and grab a meal. I’ve walked this route before and the burnside path follows an impressive gorge. After Haltwhistle, I’d follow the South Tyne southwards on a riverside path to Lambley Viaduct. The route looked quite interesting, at least from the perspective of the OS map. From there, I’d meet the Pennine Way again and wildcamp on Lambley Common. Purists may want to do the official route and so I’ve included a map for that (see above). Despite appearing to cut a corner of the official Pennine Way Path, the alternative route is only about 2.5 miles shorter. I’d definitely recommend the alternative route. Out of the two, it’s definitely my favourite. 

Hadrian's Wall

The first two miles of today’s walk followed the official Pennine Way route along Hadrian’s Wall. It followed the same theme as yesterday with plenty of ups and downs. I met Will and Hugh, two NoBos who were heading to Bellingham. They sounded the Eton types and I doffed my baseball cap to them. As I descended to Milecastle 42 near Cawfields I met a man and his son who said that there were doughnuts and coffee on offer in the nearby carpark. This sounded too good to be true and I asked if he was winding me up.
‘No, honestly. You can definitely buy some’ he assured me.
I walked past the pool formed from an old quarry and saw the mobile snack bar parked in the carpark. Doughnuts aren’t really my thing and I settled for a chocolate brownie and a coffee.  I couldn’t believe my luck. 

Haltwhistle Burn

I left the carpark and almost immediately branched away from the Pennine Way on my alternative route. The footpath followed the Haltwhistle Burn southwards to the B6318. I crossed the road and picked up the path by the burn again. I’d walked along this path a few years ago and was quite impressed. The path unexpectedly passes through a narrow wooded gorge. Halfway down the gorge I saw an elderly dog walker ahead. He swung his arm and threw a bag of dog shite into the river. I was so close that he must have been aware of my presence. His Spaniel was going mad, thinking that the owner was playing a game and it was prancing and barking down by the river. Fortunately the water was too fast flowing for it to enter. As I passed the fellow, he said ‘hello’ as though nothing had happened. The path brought me around to the east end of Haltwhistle and I went in search of food. 

Haltwhistle

Haltwhistle has a mining and quarrying heritage and I found a huge slab of rock to commemorate the fact in the market square. The history of the industry goes back at least as far as the Romans who extracted coal, limestone, lead and possibly iron ore. Kilns litter the landscape, some of which I’d seen along the Haltwhistle Burn path earlier. It helped that Haltwhistle was a stop on the Carlisle and Newcastle railway. Now fully educated by the information plaque on the rock, I decided to check out Jethro's café across the road. 

The person in front of me in the queue was paying for her meal and complained about its cost. The poor girl serving behind the counter said that she couldn’t do anything about it. I ordered a veggie breakfast and a coffee that came to about £10. Admittedly, it wasn’t the largest breakfast I’d ever had, and maybe the coffee wasn’t the best, but I thought overall it was very good value. I'd found a £1 coin on yesterday’s walk. I call such findings ‘Dead Man’s Money’ since I reckon that by finding it and using it for your own hedonistic pleasure, you merely compound the misery of those that lost it. Money is a zero-sum game. Consequently,  I always donate any money I find to charity. I’d been pondering what charity should benefit from yesterday’s find and I resolved the situation by placing the coin in the waitress tip box at the counter.     

I called in at the town’s Co-Op. Today was Saturday. Tomorrow I’d be walking through Alston, another town where I could restock, but I wasn’t 100% sure whether I would get there before early Sunday shop closing. The next resupply option was at Middleton-in-Teesdale, 4 days away. To fully ensure I didn’t run out of food, I bought 4 day’s worth, to cover me until Middleton. My rucksack felt a tad heavier than normal as I plodded out of Haltwhistle. 

South Tyne

I joined the South Tyne riverside path and followed it upstream. What a revelation this path turned out to be; it was stunning. Every so often I would come across signage for the ‘River Tyne Trail.’ The walk also appeared to be called  ‘Daft As A Brush Cancer Patient Care Walk.’ Sometimes the path went adjacent to the river and other times it drifted away and higher into woodland. It was a lovely path. The footpath eventually finished at a single track road and I continued to follow the South Tyne upstream. At the impressive Featherstone Bridge I met an elderly couple from Somerset. 
‘Don’t miss the thousands of Sand Martins nesting in the riverbank further upstream’ the woman informed me.
‘There weren’t thousands dear. There were maybe hundreds’ he corrected.
‘Oh okay. Hundreds then’ she said sniffily.
When I eventually did reach the stretch of riverbank they were on about, I found a couple of dozen of the birds, rather than hundreds. It was an amazing sight though seeing them fly into their nests burrowed into the sand of the riverbank.

On approaching Featherstone Castle, I left the road and joined a footpath next to the river. The castle looked very grand. The castle, hills and wide river reminded me of Scotland. This really was a gem of a valley. I met an elderly man, a middle aged woman and two kids. The fellow had a nose the shape and texture of a golf ball. He’d obviously been a rambler in his past life. He reckoned that the owner of the castle had let some of his walking groups into the building to have a look around on a couple of occasions.  Further along the river on this beautiful estate I came across a derelict PoW camp. A plaque informed me that thousands of German officers were held here during the years 1945-48. I bet they couldn’t have believed their luck when they ended up here. Who wouldn’t rather be in this stunning place than on the front, fighting a war. A dedication was made to Captain Herber Sulzbach (OBE, no less) …’who dedicated himself to making this camp a seedbed of British-German reconciliation.    

The path was so beautiful I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t come across more walkers. My time along the riverbank terminated at Lambley Viaduct. Its nine arch construction towered at least 33m above the river. The viaduct was built in 1852 to haul coal and lead from the Alston mines to Haltwhistle and beyond.  It was closed in 1976. A footbridge led me across the river about 100 metres downstream from it. I got an awesome view of the viaduct from the middle of the footbridge. On the other side of the river I started climbing steeply out of the valley. It was now time to leave the South Tyne and find my way back on to the Pennine Way. 

Sharon Gayter

I was a little early to wildcamp and so I thought I’d check out the village of Lambley to see if I could find a pub to waste an hour. I’d searched on Google, but hadn’t found anything and so I didn’t hold out much hope. As I mindlessly wandered down the high street of the village, a couple appeared out of a door of one of its houses. They started walking towards me.  
‘Are you looking for something?’ the woman asked cheerfully. I told her that I was doing the Pennine Way and was looking for a pub. She confirmed that the village didn’t have one.
‘Although, you can get a free cup of tea or coffee in the church, if you want’ she added.   She and her husband were on their way to visit somebody else in the village who was recovering from an operation. Her husband hadn’t stopped and had continued down the high street. I commented on the running sweatshirt the woman was wearing and there then ensued a long and fascinating conversation.   

The woman was Sharon Gayter, an ultra-runner. I’m intrigued by these people and so had plenty of questions to ask her. She holds one of the fastest times ever run by a woman for running from Lands End to John o’Groats - 12 days 11 hours 6 minutes. I told her that I couldn’t even comprehend how you could even attempt such a feat.
‘A lot of it is mental, rather than physical’ she said. I believe she said that she’d come 3rd in one of the Pennine Way Spine Races. ‘..on one occasion, I remember waking up from a dream. I looked up and saw a drone filming me from above. I thought, “Crikey, I’m in a race here” and I started running again.’  Sharon represented Great Britain 27 times. In 2011 she broke the Guinness World Record for the furthest distance run on a treadmill in 7 days. Her distance of 833 km added 100 miles to the existing female record and nearly 50 miles more than the men’s record. She’s run hundreds of ultras, marathons, and off-road events of marathon distance. She’s completed races all over the world including the notoriously difficult Badwater ultra-marathon and the formidable multi-day Marathon des Sables. I was in awe of this woman. Needless to say that she’d ran a 14 mile off-road race earlier in the morning. She’d been recovering from an operation that had involved sewing her quadricep back to her knee. ‘It was my fault that caused it. I tripped up on a run.’ In this particular case I decided that there wasn’t a hope in hell that I could Tommy-Top her and so I didn’t tell her of when I section ran the Pennine Way, and my occasional 6 mile jog back home. The sun was going down before I relieved her of her anecdotes and she wandered down the street to her friend. She had offered to invite me into her house to see her trophies, but I figured it would probably be dark before I left. What a remarkable woman.  

Lambley Common

I made my way back along the high street and found a fingerpost for the Pennine Way. It was only a 20 or 30 minute haul up to Lambley Common where I managed to find a suitably sheltered pitch. It felt like it was going to be another chilly night. 

The days seem to be getting better and better along the Pennine Way. I was very impressed with my alternative route from Hadrian’s Wall to Lambley. The path alongside the River South Tyne was incredibly beautiful and a real gem of a find. The chance meeting with Sharon Gayter was an absolute bonus and incredibly interesting. Tomorrow was going to be challenging for me too. I had a 20 mile haul ahead of me to Greg’s Hut bothy, with a 900 metre ascent. It was going to be tough…but probably not quite as tough as one of Sharon’s races.