August 8, 1979: Usway Ford Farm to Kerk Yetholm
Auchope Cairn
I did not sleep well. There was the recurrent rack of Mrs. Wilkinson’s cough, somebody threw up in the bathroom next door, and I was suffering from the usual anxieties about making it through the last day – and thus finally reaching Kirk Yetholm.
Weather was again gray and misty. Breakfast was served at 8:00, but it took a long time to get Simon going and Mrs. W had to show him how to tie on his gaiters. A number of times I offered to give him my compass, since his was wet, but he declined. On Wednesday, August 8, at last, we left Usway Ford Farm and headed up the burn to Davison’s Lynn, a pretty waterfall on the site of a derelict distillery. He warned me that he walked swiftly, but this would be true only in you discounted the frequent pauses he made for nature lectures, view taking, and coffee sampling from his thermos.
We began the steep walk back up to the Border Fence. I was happy to reach this reassuring landmark shortly after 10:00. Weather was improving and the sun was out again and, though I left my muck pants on, I took my rain cape off. Simon pedantically identified each distant hill and the names of all local wildflowers. He also slashed at every tussock of heather in an effort to alert the adders, whom he feared. None appeared – nor have I ever seen one on any British footpath.
At first we walked on the Scottish side of the fence. It was dryer because it had not been worn into a bare slime by all these boots, but the ground was very uneven and rough on the ankles and I insisted we go back to the English side and dodge around the pools and the peat hags. We passed Butt Roods and had a cup of coffee at King’s Seat. Then it was up Score Head and the steep and juicy ascent of Cairn Hill West Top. By now a number of walkers were coming up behind us. These included my camping friends from Windy Gyle. The views were outstanding and visibility excellent, but there was an edge to the wind. Today’s outstanding visibility taught me just how much I had missed while tramping around in yesterday’s mist. To the north views of Scotland now appeared. It was an exhilarating prospect.
We reached the acute angle in the Border Fence and I had to make a decision about whether or not to undertake the detour spur to the summit of the Cheviot. Such a diversion would have put me seriously behind schedule, I was anxious to get to the end now, and Simon, who was determined to find the top of this marshy peak, wasn’t going to return this way anyway. So I decided not to accompany him. We said goodbye, shook hands, and I began the wet slosh down the hill, then used a considerable detour on dryer ground, and so continued on up Auchope Cairn. It was about 12:40.
The Schil
On top of Auchope Cairn I rested, ate my Mars Bar, and had some water. The view, past the Schil and into Scotland, was outstanding and I took quite a few pictures. Then there began a very steep descent, tough on the toes, in the direction of Red Cribs. I had a peek into Hen Hole and passed a “hut” – a railway car, or so it seemed, which had gotten up here God knows how. A party that had passed me once before passed me a second time just before I got to the foot of the Schil, the last major summit of the trip (or so I thought). I chugged up the 400 final feet with no difficulty, utilizing my usual slow but steady pace. After three and a half days of walking my stamina was still excellent and my legs in good shape. I paused briefly at the top (more gorgeous views) and had some water.
Then I continued my descent, my eye on distant walkers who had found the spot where the Border Fence is left behind at last. Prancing behind one group of ramblers was what appeared to be a dancing sheep, but this proved to be a large white dog. This I discovered when I caught up with the family in question, huddled against the fence while a brief shower pummeled us. I put on my rain cape and went through a gate at Black Hag. There were lots of day-trippers about. Some were actually sunbathing as I approached the col between the Curr and Black Hag. Here was a PW map and a sign illustrating the route. I didn’t stop to study it since I had Wainwright in my belly, but as I began my descent into Scotland I was to regret this – the PW still had a few surprises for me.
The route on the ground, for instance, did not seem to conform to Wainwright’s maps at all, though – to make things more confusing – every now and then a telltale acorn would appear on a gate or a style, an indication that I was still on route. I tried to peak into what I thought was the proper valley of descent but just at that moment another fierce shower blew rain and wind in my face and I had to put my rain cape on for a second time.
I reached a point where the “route,” which was following a northerly ridge, appeared to be heading uphill again – even though I had convinced myself that I was through with summits! The direction was not far wrong (I had to use the compass I had tried to give away to Simon), but I deeply resented the prospect of more ascents. Fortunately, I came up behind a couple with their sullen teenage daughter and asked them if they knew where, precisely, we were. (My difficulties were compounded because I did not have the OS map for this portion of the route.) The father confirmed that the farm below us on the left was Burnhead and that behind it lay the road to Kirk Yetholm. Since they were heading back to their car here I decided to abandon the present configuration of the route and descend to this farm, which is what my Bible of a guidebook required anyway. In doing so I was leaving England behind and entering Scotland for the first time.
It was a steep descent though bracken, though there were some paths. I discussed the success of the Essex County Cricket Club with the father, who was from Chelmsford. It felt good to be back among landmarks I could recognize from Wainwright, though it was now getting quite hot. One final shower lead to a third donning of the rain cape, but the wet weather had passed by the time I hit the road, a little over two miles from Kirk Yetholm. I was offered a ride the rest of the way by the Essex family, but naturally I disdained this. I had picked up excellent time and knew I could now arrive at about 5:00.
The Border Hotel, Kirk Yetholm
Near the foot of “the cruellest hill of all,” the one between the Halterburn Valley and Kirk Yetholm, the route I had abandoned came in from a ridge on the right. Later it became clear that another post-Wainwright “official” route had been established for this section so that I had been doing the original recipe version instead of the new, improved variation. I don’t suppose that, to weary walkers, the latter has proved very popular – though it does avoid some road walking. Up the last hill I marched. A troop of horseback riders preceded me, one of the equestriennes looking quite seasick as she sprawled over her saddle. Finally, the hill surmounted, there were views of the Yetholms below me. What a welcome sight. I walked past the Valleydene Guest House on my way to the town square and took a picture of the Border Hotel, which had “End of the Pennine Way” in huge letters on its side. Then at just about 5:00 I rang the doorbell of my b&b and was admitted by Mr. Tom Brown.
For the third time in three nights I was shown to a room with more than one bed in it. My first object was the bathroom, where I took off the tape for the last time, stuffing it into my empty celebratory Fanta can – for I was supping lemon squash again as I bathed. One crack on my right heel was a bit sore, but on the whole I was without blisters.
Later Mr Brown showed me a drawer full of PW postcards for sale, but none were from K.Y. so I used some old ones to write my last card to Jay. This went into the post almost immediately. The bar in the Border Hotel was open and I had a pint while the proprietor dispensed beverages and “Pennine Way Conquered” t-shirts and neckties to the day’s troop of limping and tired walkers. Quite a few of the heroes were being met in the bar by girlfriends who had come to retrieve them in cars. I could have returned to the Border Bar after dinner, but, in fact, I felt a bit of a fraud among all the celebrants, since I had not completed the entire route yet – with 70 miles still to go for me at the southern end. This means that I was also unable to claim the free half pint, which Wainwright himself then subsidized – for all those who had actually completed the whole walk.
I returned to Valleydene where I called Dorothy and watched TV for a while with the only other resident – a huge fat woman with swollen ankles, an afghan, a cane, and many opinions – who seemed to be a fixture in the parlor. She looked a little like a Duchess in Wonderland, with a curly mop of hair and two teeth missing at the bottom of her mouth. She sent one of the local girls out to get her a coke and asked the lass what she would like as well. “I dey ken,” the answer to this question (though I have no idea how it was spelled), was translated as “I don’t know” in the local dialect. The fat lady then began to tell me all about her relatives and those of the proprietor, some of whom she denounced as “rough trade with mouths like sewers.” One or two members of this family came to watch TV, as did Tom, while the fat lady fed two of their dogs with chocolates – to which they protested to no avail. A parrot squawked in the bathroom. The fat lady complained about snobs every other sentence. She was delighted by my interest in Coronation Street, which offered a particularly good episode in which Stan Ogden knocked out the Street’s power, trying to silence Mike Baldwin’s burglar alarm. I watched TV for an hour or so after that, and went to bed early.
I also had breakfast early on the morning of Thursday, August 9, so I could make the 8:20 bus. My pack was quite heavy now, since it contained my wet boots, but I didn’t have far to carry it to the huge tree on the green – where ten or so hikers were similarly assembled. There was a slight drizzle, but weather soon became more sunny. The bus to Kelso arrived and we had a short ride, pausing once to pick up some walkers in Town Yetholm. I met a dog who had done the entire Pennine Way and I asked his owner how the animal had liked it. “He would just as soon have stayed at home,” was the reply. Indeed he next showed me the poor dog’s ribs – the pooch had lost so much weight. Sitting in front of me was a slightly sick rambler who had started a fire in his stomach yesterday by cooking his last meal at the Schil (Vesta Chop Suey) in the only available liquid, black current juice – a fire he had put out with too many pints at the Border Hotel. Also aboard the bus were the cricket fans and the Windy Gyle campers. Most of the other walkers were heading south on the Newcastle bus. I knew that they’d have a long wait before they could do that – having looked up bus schedules in the Swiss Cottage Library – and I planned to head south via Berwick.
When we arrived at Kelso our driver announced that we were already seated on the Berwick bus and changed the number and destination on the front of his vehicle. So I stayed put and was soon joined by almost all the other walkers, who had decided to follow my route. We left Kelso at 9:10 for a milk run to Berwick-on-Tweed, on the North Sea coast. Our train connections would have been tight, but the driver let us all out near the British Rail stop and I lead a long ragged line into the station and aboard the 10:43 for Newcastle.
The train was full of screaming Cub Scouts. I sat in the same car as the Windy Gyle campers and was quizzed on life in Los Angeles (“Why, that’s a living hell, isn’t it?”) for an hour or so. These two remained on the train when I had to change in Newcastle. I had only one platform to move, but several minutes to wait, so I had a Schweppes Orange and a last bag of KP nuts. The train boarded was one from Edinburgh, via Carlisle – the kind of detour necessitated by the recent Penmanshield Tunnel blockage.
My companions again included the cricket fans and the survivor of chop suey cooked in Ribena. The latter had recovered sufficiently to tell us about his hair-raising experiences as a novice driver. He also ate a cold steak and kidney pie. There were many PW reminiscences. Some German schoolgirls and a cross-eyed minister from Scarborough with a huge beak of a nose and a Bible which he used as a pillow were also in our compartment. The journey, this time conducted backwards for me, was tedious, if fast. I arrived in London at 3:46, said goodbye to all, and made my way over to the Northern Line for a quick trip to Chalk Farm.
In some senses this had been my most successful trip to this point in my walking career. By six miles or so and by two additional days I had done more walking the previous summer – but this Twice Brewed to Kirk Yetholm stage was surely the outing with the highest miles per day average and the only trip, so far, in which I had actually succeeded in completing all planned stages in one go. So with an eye on the last 70 miles still ahead of me, I marched happily to our flat where, only a few minutes later, Dorothy arrived with a sniffling cousin Bernard.
Many of those who reach Kirk Yetholm will have reached the end of the Pennine Way. But there was still a seventy-mile gap in the south for us to complete. To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: