Day 67 - Byrness to Kirk Yetholm

For the last 150 miles, since reading that this leg of the Pennine Way was going to be biggest and longest of days I'd found the prospect intimidating. The length at almost 26 miles, the altitude gain of 4200 feet the likelihood of poor visibility and the vagaries of the weather, even the guide books suggest splitting this into 2 days.

Ah well! Bloody mindedly, I'd planned to do it one and Herbie had bravely offered to walk with me.

Having looked at the likely duration of the walk we decided that an early start would be wise and Susanne very kindly got us up, breakfasted, out of the door and into the Berlingo by 7:15.

By 8:10 we were in Byrness and walking on our way.

The climb out of Byrness is steep through the pine forest

until the final scramble got us above the treeline and on to the moor.

First fauna of the day.

In a spirit of self congratulation we couldn't believe our luck in choosing such a perfect day for a long walk. The conditions were ideal.

Herbie and I doing our Bill and Ben impression!

The second Fauna of the day - What we reckoned was a Pipit of some description

and the air was alive with the sound of skylarks above us to the left and right.

By 1030, our first stop was at the buried remains of Roman encampment Chew Green on Dere Street - the Roman Road that ran from York to Melrose.

To be honest, it was so well buried, there wasn't much to be seen but certainly enough to fire our imaginations with the sound of Roman cappuccino machines and large servings of tagliatelle like a mama makes that would have greeted those legionnaires having trudged and clanked their way across those cold moors.!!

We'd obviously enjoyed the imagining too much because we were caught up by John and Dan who'd both walked up from Forest View.

We walked together until by 1230 we'd arrived at the first of the mountain refuge huts beyond Wedder Hill at 1500 feet.

A large group , walking in the opposite direction -

had arrived before us so we pushed on up the long and steep Lamb Hill at almost 1700 feet.

These mountain goats didn't tell us we'd lost the path

so out came the schoolboy compass to check our bearings and after some hoofing across deep heather we were soon back on track.

The prospect of Windy Gyle up ahead - probably the half way point.

Some more naughty goats trying to lure us off the path.

At long last at 1430 we arrived at Windy Gyle at 2030 feet.

Conscious of our need to maintain progress we were regularly rechecking our eta. - we had a table booked at The Border hotel for supper at 1915, Herbie had a prearranged conference call with New Zealad at 2200 tonight, and was going to be on the 0620 from Hexham tomorrow morning so we decided to have a quick lunch stop and push on.

Herbie had introduced me to Naismith's rule for calculating time for a mountain walk. 1 hour for every 3 miles walked and another hour per 2000 feet of ascent.! Hmm!!

Our highest point of the day at almost 2450 feet was just below The Cheviot.

We then crossed over to Auchope cairn at 2400 feet

where Herbie checked the map

for our best route for the long steep descent to the second mountain refuge at 1600 feet.

We'd left John and Dan behind but knew they were intending to stay - the location and the views were stunning.

The final big ascent of the day was up to the top of The Schil at just a smidge under 2000 feet. It was tough with the legs getting tired.

Then the last long way down

with fabulous views into Scotland.

Looking back The Schil even had its own cloud!

Because timing was getting tight we arranged for Susanne to pick us up at a cattle grid just above the town - unfortunately we hadn't factored in that this was Yetholm's festival week and tonight was their Rideout or Common Riding....the world and his horse had turned up.

Susanne managed to skillfully negotiate the crowd and with some apologetic hand waving and thumbs up we managed to negotiate our way to the Border Hotel.