June 11, 2011: Belford to Fenwick
At Swinhoe Lakes
Tosh arrived at 8:30, as promised, and joined me for breakfast. She did not begrudge the extra £30 she had paid for her substitute accommodation and she reported that they had made her more than comfortable at the Black Swan – even though no one there could believe that she had walked all the way from Cresswell. At breakfast we were joined by a vacationing couple who filled us in on what we might expect on Holy Island.
Accepting our lunches and leaving our bags behind we left at about 9:30, our landlady’s hope that we would not find things too wet today receiving an almost immediate negation from the heavens – I paused to put on my rain jacket in the bus shelter around the corner. Then we dropped down to the newsagent and Tosh returned to the surprised proprietor about half of the Saturday paper she had just purchased. In a light drizzle we were now prepared to find our way forward along the pavements of the Wooler Road.
Westhall near Belford
This we crossed when we had reached a poppy-covered war memorial. We turned right along a track and then climbed into a field on our left. I took one of only four pictures this day as we passed the moated Westhall farmstead. My camera now remained buried in my pack for most of the day since I could no longer pluck it from a front pocket – pocketless rain pants had to go on over trousers now as well. We turned right at the end of a second field and began to rise with a trail that brought us to the top of a ridge. It was clear by now that the rain was here for some time – but it wasn’t too heavy at this point.
On the ridge we maintained a northwesterly direction along an exposed upland, relying on waymarks and searching out the dominant groove in the grass. It wasn’t long before I noticed that moisture had gotten through a gap in my map case and discolored a page of the County Council guidebook I was utilizing.
At Swinhoe Farm
One of the suggestions in the latter was to aim for a radio mast and this we did, soon discovering Swinhoe Farm below us. Tosh took one side of a hill to descend to this outpost, I another. Briefly I fished my camera out to take a picture of a white horse leaning out from a decayed barn. Tracks now replaced trails for a while and this allowed for steady, if sodden progress. I took the camera out for a third shot as we passed Swinhoe Lakes, where rhododendrons were still in bloom.
At about the three-mile mark Tosh said she wanted to eat some of her lunch so we hunkered down under a tree and opened our sacks. It was very wet and the place did not provide much shelter. Sheep on the opposite side of the fence (the fourth and last photo) looked at us pathetically as a number of other walkers passed us going in both directions. Among these were our breakfast companions; soon we could see them heading back at an angle – returning to the b&b by getting in a visit to St. Cuthbert’s Cave.
Indeed, as we continued forward we soon encountered a junction with St. Cuthbert’s Way – which, like the NCP, headed west to enter a patch of forestry. I was grateful for the shelter provided by the many wooded sections is what was clearly a very lovely countryside – forever lost to my memory because of the lack of photography. However I would have enjoyed my experience all the more thoroughly if I had not been bothered by my recurring trouser problem – now exacerbated by the drag provided by my rain pants…I was forever tugging these garments up and they were forever entering into a terminal decline. I could also feel my sweatshirt getting wetter within my rain jacket. Usually I take this off when I put my rain jacket on – but I had been too cold to do this today.
We were making good progress through the woodland, passing Shiellow Wood and Detchant Strip and Dolly Gibson’s Lonnen – without understanding a word. I had hoped to slow things down, having advised our landlady of a 2:00 pm arrival time, but now I was just as anxious as Tosh to get inside as soon as possible. It was very fortunate that this all-day rain came on a stretch when we had only six miles of walking.
At Blawearie we reached a road and a right turn put us on tarmac – which we could take all the way to our destination village, Fenwick. Tosh kept trying to conjure up a teahouse or a pub in this hamlet, but I had to warn her that these dreams were mere fantasies. It was 1:30 when we arrived at our b&b. Of course we feared there would be no one at home but our host was on the premises and let us in. We took our sodden boots off in the vestibule – later I returned to stuff newspapers into these objects. Tosh was already composing a letter of protest to her shoe manufacturer, having been assured erroneously that her new boots were waterproof.
Our bags had not arrived but we were shown to our rooms; again no en suite, but I seemed to be the sole user on the top floor of the nearby loo. Tosh had to climb a flight of stairs to reach this spot. She was out of sorts for a number of reasons, I suppose, and this little hike was only one of them. We had long hoped that we could use this afternoon – following only a short stint on the trail – to visit Holy Island. When I had phoned our landlady (who had been less than gracious about such an early arrival time) I had raised this possibility, receiving a gratuitous, “Well you don’t expect us to take you, do you?” I had mentioned that we had been thinking of a local taxi and this matter had been deferred to our actual arrival. Now, with the rain still driving down and visibility much restricted, it appeared that Lindisfarne might have to wait for some other day. Tosh was quite disappointed (though she had been there before) but I was just as happy to give it a miss today.
Our host talked at length about all the TVs and DVDs on offer but I preferred to climb under the covers and await the arrival of our luggage – which came at 3:00. I tried to find places to dry all my wet things – shoving my red sweatshirt behind the bed because there was a tepid radiator here and spreading out the pages of the guidebook. There was no hope for my sopping socks. After my shower I headed downstairs to join Tosh in a lounge that was overstuffed with ceramic kitsch and family photos but all the TV remotes had been hidden away and our host had to find them for us. (To use the DVD slot on the TV in my room – high above a wardrobe – would have required a chair to stand on – but there was no chair in “Lavender.”
I dozed a bit and read some more and at 7:00 I went downstairs with Tosh for the promised “complimentary” ride to a nearby pub – since there was no food on offer locally. Our host drove us to the door of The Lindisfarne Inn in nearby Beal and promised to return at 9:00.
We ordered some drinks and after half an hour we were moved to a table under a giant TV (fortunately silent) in the crowded dining room. We studied the menu, made our choices at the bar, and awaited our food. At least there were some people in this room who had yet to earn their bus passes – including one large family about to take seats at the table behind us. While they were waiting to do this one young bespectacled lad in a hooded coat opened his mouth and produced, in four great spurts, the entire contents of his troubled stomach. His dad manned the mop and bucket that cleaned this mess from the floor, mom took the sufferer home, and the waitresses arrived with our starters.
I had a mushroom soup and the local bacon cheeseburger. Tosh had ordered too much food again but she did take a bite or two from my sticky toffee pudding, which I had ordered merely because we had another half an hour to kill before our pick-up time. We paid and took seats on a banquette near the front door and I got up every now and then to have a peek outdoors – not knowing which car our host would arrive in since he had borrowed his wife’s car for the original journey. It was quite cold outside and there was still moisture in the air.
The minutes passed very slowly and we each had a brandy while others quizzed us about our walk. At 9:30 Tosh began to get quite antsy and pulled out her mobile phone to call our b&b. When she returned she was beside herself – our landlady having claimed that hubby had waited for twenty minutes in the parking lot – “You didn’t expect him to get out of the car, did you?!” There was no offer of a rescue now, meaning that we would have to call a cab. Tosh got some numbers and we were told there would be a twenty-minute wait. I was fuming.
The cabbie did arrive on time (he was prepared to come inside, unlike others in the hospitality business) and we were soon on our five-minute journey back to our b&b. It was about 10:20 now, the last light was fading from the sky; there was no sign of either or our hosts. I rescued our wet gear from the clothes rack on which it had been jammed (with no chance to dry properly) and we took these things upstairs with us. I was still fuming.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: