Thursday 1st June
The morning started grey and forboding. It looked like rain - you know that rain that gets you realy wet. The clouds were skipping over the sky from the Solway Firth at a fair rate of knots.
We breakfasted at the Little Chef adjacent to the hotel. As usual in the UK, the fare on offer was dull but seeing as I wouldn't be able to do anything other than walk if I got a full english, toast and tea was taken.
I wanted to get going ASAP as I expected to get stuck in the Carlisle rush hour. We set off at 0830 but apparently Carlisle doesn't have a rush hour so we got straight through and drove the long straight 12 miles to Bowness. I already checked the Easy Tides website some months hence as that part of the country seems to be underwater a lot of the time so I knew we'd be alright. Bowness is shown below and is a charming wee place. And it IS wee! According to Visit Cumbria, there used to be a viaduct linking Bowness and Annan across the whole width of the Solway Firth (over a mile) to link the railways either side of the border. Apparently the Scots preferred to close it than let their people use it a thoroughfare for illicit Sunday night drinking in England. Allegedly.
I set off about 0900. There were a lot of people around the start of the walk. But it was hard to seperate the tweedy hairy twitchers (The area is an AONB) from the tweedy hairy walkers. Unfortunately I neglected to get a photo from the start so here is one I nicked earlier:
The next couple of hours went like a dream. However, a picture I took with my phone and texted to work tells another story:
By the time I got started and avoided a succession of relcalcitrant bulls, sheep and other walkers; rearranged my iPod, and was chased by two dogs I got a fairly decent pace going. I did the next 10 1/2 miles before 1100 and rested at Kirkandrews on Eden before completing the remainder into Carlisle at a gentle pace .
This was most of the running done for the trip. Which was a shame as I'd enjoyed the morning. And West Cumbria has some of the nicest van drivers I've ever met - even the white ones gave me the thumbs-up which could have been thanks for me wearing a high-viz vest (most of the beardies thought they could wear dark colours and expect not to be run over)
The weather turned out ot be perfect for running - overcast but warm enough to be comfortable. And no rain as it turned out!
Heather picked me up and we lunched in the exotic confines of Morrisons at Carlisle. Heather gave me a lift through the city to the A689 a couple of kilometres outside. Here the sun came out and I topped up my Camelbak with another two litres of water, glucose and carb mix. I ran the next 4 - 5 miles or so until just outside Brampton where I had another rest. After checking in with work just south of Carlisle airport, I found that the decision to follow a trunk road (the A689) for such a distance was a tad dangerous to say the least - but this was saving me valuable distance and TIME as we had to be at the B&B in Greenhead no later than 6. The proximity of lorries and other large traffic to me was most disconcerting, thank god for the bright vest again! Plus - I've never seen so many tractors and queues of traffic in my life which only served to enrage the more impatient drivers.
Mid-afternoon, we found ourselves in Brampton. The plan was to follow the A69 further but i was unwilling to risk my neck any more on narrow verges and roads without cycle lanes as a buffer for me. Heather took me on a reccie of the A69 to the other side of Brampton and another five miles East of the village. As I thought, there was no way I was going to risk walking along here as I got more tired and the chances of stumbling under the wheels of a Belgian truck increased! H. took me back to Brampton and I changed the route to pass through Eastern end of Brampton, down and across the Irthing Valley. I passed Lanercost Priory and up the side of the valley to rejoin the trail at the top. As I walked past the Priory (shown below) the weather was glorious and it triggered the memory that I had actually stayed in the Priory in 1991 on a TA weekend (I also remembered the local pub being taken over by our Company). What a strange coincidence. I reckon I was up to about 20-odd miles at this point.
It's a pity, but I was taking pictures of the landscape along the way (the Irthing Valley in particular is stunning) but my phone wasn't up to the job (it's getting on a bit) so I wasn't able to do justice to the vista when organising the pictures and a lot of images were wasted - Sorry!
I had arranged to meet Heather further along the trail at Bankhead Turret. I made it about 3.30 and had a bit of a rest. I topped up my water for the third time that day - the sun was really starting to beat down now! Hereafter, it was a fairly straigtforward journey for the next hour and a half as I got more tired and the pace dropped. Birdoswald was made about 5.00 after a few jovial conversations with fellow trampers. I was anxious to make it to the B&B sharpish so I could get my feet soaked.
As it turned out, that proved to be harder than I thought. Whilst the B&B (just outside Greenhead) seemed OK when contacted there was no bath, no evening meal on offer. I had to use the rubbish bin in the room as a foot spa when filled with cold water - ahhh, bliss! We went into Haltwhistle (proclaimed as the 'centre of mainland Britain') for our tea and after sorting the wheat from the chaff found the traditional Black Bull where we both had pasta dishes and I indulged in a pint of ale. An hour later I was out on my feet and had to be shuttled back to bed and lovely clean crisp sheets.
iPod: Compiled in advance was a long playlist consisting of: Black Grape, The Happy Mondays, the hilarious Electric Six, Radiohead's 'OK Computer', Space, Paul Weller, Snow Patrol, New Order and Feeder.
We breakfasted at the Little Chef adjacent to the hotel. As usual in the UK, the fare on offer was dull but seeing as I wouldn't be able to do anything other than walk if I got a full english, toast and tea was taken.
I wanted to get going ASAP as I expected to get stuck in the Carlisle rush hour. We set off at 0830 but apparently Carlisle doesn't have a rush hour so we got straight through and drove the long straight 12 miles to Bowness. I already checked the Easy Tides website some months hence as that part of the country seems to be underwater a lot of the time so I knew we'd be alright. Bowness is shown below and is a charming wee place. And it IS wee! According to Visit Cumbria, there used to be a viaduct linking Bowness and Annan across the whole width of the Solway Firth (over a mile) to link the railways either side of the border. Apparently the Scots preferred to close it than let their people use it a thoroughfare for illicit Sunday night drinking in England. Allegedly.
I set off about 0900. There were a lot of people around the start of the walk. But it was hard to seperate the tweedy hairy twitchers (The area is an AONB) from the tweedy hairy walkers. Unfortunately I neglected to get a photo from the start so here is one I nicked earlier:
The next couple of hours went like a dream. However, a picture I took with my phone and texted to work tells another story:By the time I got started and avoided a succession of relcalcitrant bulls, sheep and other walkers; rearranged my iPod, and was chased by two dogs I got a fairly decent pace going. I did the next 10 1/2 miles before 1100 and rested at Kirkandrews on Eden before completing the remainder into Carlisle at a gentle pace .This was most of the running done for the trip. Which was a shame as I'd enjoyed the morning. And West Cumbria has some of the nicest van drivers I've ever met - even the white ones gave me the thumbs-up which could have been thanks for me wearing a high-viz vest (most of the beardies thought they could wear dark colours and expect not to be run over)
The weather turned out ot be perfect for running - overcast but warm enough to be comfortable. And no rain as it turned out!
Heather picked me up and we lunched in the exotic confines of Morrisons at Carlisle. Heather gave me a lift through the city to the A689 a couple of kilometres outside. Here the sun came out and I topped up my Camelbak with another two litres of water, glucose and carb mix. I ran the next 4 - 5 miles or so until just outside Brampton where I had another rest. After checking in with work just south of Carlisle airport, I found that the decision to follow a trunk road (the A689) for such a distance was a tad dangerous to say the least - but this was saving me valuable distance and TIME as we had to be at the B&B in Greenhead no later than 6. The proximity of lorries and other large traffic to me was most disconcerting, thank god for the bright vest again! Plus - I've never seen so many tractors and queues of traffic in my life which only served to enrage the more impatient drivers.
Mid-afternoon, we found ourselves in Brampton. The plan was to follow the A69 further but i was unwilling to risk my neck any more on narrow verges and roads without cycle lanes as a buffer for me. Heather took me on a reccie of the A69 to the other side of Brampton and another five miles East of the village. As I thought, there was no way I was going to risk walking along here as I got more tired and the chances of stumbling under the wheels of a Belgian truck increased! H. took me back to Brampton and I changed the route to pass through Eastern end of Brampton, down and across the Irthing Valley. I passed Lanercost Priory and up the side of the valley to rejoin the trail at the top. As I walked past the Priory (shown below) the weather was glorious and it triggered the memory that I had actually stayed in the Priory in 1991 on a TA weekend (I also remembered the local pub being taken over by our Company). What a strange coincidence. I reckon I was up to about 20-odd miles at this point.
It's a pity, but I was taking pictures of the landscape along the way (the Irthing Valley in particular is stunning) but my phone wasn't up to the job (it's getting on a bit) so I wasn't able to do justice to the vista when organising the pictures and a lot of images were wasted - Sorry!
I had arranged to meet Heather further along the trail at Bankhead Turret. I made it about 3.30 and had a bit of a rest. I topped up my water for the third time that day - the sun was really starting to beat down now! Hereafter, it was a fairly straigtforward journey for the next hour and a half as I got more tired and the pace dropped. Birdoswald was made about 5.00 after a few jovial conversations with fellow trampers. I was anxious to make it to the B&B sharpish so I could get my feet soaked.
As it turned out, that proved to be harder than I thought. Whilst the B&B (just outside Greenhead) seemed OK when contacted there was no bath, no evening meal on offer. I had to use the rubbish bin in the room as a foot spa when filled with cold water - ahhh, bliss! We went into Haltwhistle (proclaimed as the 'centre of mainland Britain') for our tea and after sorting the wheat from the chaff found the traditional Black Bull where we both had pasta dishes and I indulged in a pint of ale. An hour later I was out on my feet and had to be shuttled back to bed and lovely clean crisp sheets.
iPod: Compiled in advance was a long playlist consisting of: Black Grape, The Happy Mondays, the hilarious Electric Six, Radiohead's 'OK Computer', Space, Paul Weller, Snow Patrol, New Order and Feeder.
posted by TheTechie at
19:24
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