Pennine Way (North to South) 2024 – Day 3

13th May 2024: Byrness to Bellingham – 16.5 miles

I’m writing this in my Bed & Breakfast just outside Bellingham at the end of a wonderful third day of walking. I haven’t even finished the journal for day 2 yet, but I figured I should try and get today’s done while everything was fresh in my mind. I’m still struggling for motivation to write these up, so if they come across as a bit bland and boring, I do apologise. Hopefully I’ll get back in the swing of things soon.

I didn’t have a particularly good night’s sleep. I heard the rain hammering down even before I dropped off about 10pm and I think I dreamt of bogs and wide, raging rivers. I was awake about 5am, but I tried to turn over and at least snooze for a while. It didn’t really work and I was up and about by 6am. Two hours until breakfast!

I tried to catch up with the journal, but only got about two thirds of day 2 finished before I did a little bit of packing and then headed down stairs for a much needed brew and breakfast.

I was chatting with Laura who was setting out the tables, before anyone else arrived and I mentioned that I’d done the 4th edition of the Trailblazer guide for the Pennine Way, having seen two copies of it on the bookshelf in their reception area. One was obviously well thumbed and she was delighted and asked me about it. I explained I don’t normally go around bragging about it, and I wasn’t actually sure why I mentioned it this time. She took the book in the back and a few minutes later, Oliver came out and said he knew he’d recognised my name somewhere – he thought I might have been a Spine racer (something he’s done a few times), but of course he’d seen my name on the guide book, which he’d used hundreds of times to show people how to get down from Windy Gyle to the pickup point. He even persuaded me to let him take a photo of me at the front of the establishment, for their social media – ‘a Pennine Way celebrity’ he said!

Breakfast was great again, I chatted with Dave the Canuk and the older couple doing JoGLE. I wanted to get away by 9am though, so I said my farewells and went up to finish my packing.

I was down again about 8.45 and paid up, booted up and headed out into another absolutely beautiful day. I had looked a little grey and overcast at 7am, but it was nice and sunny now as I walked along the shady lane through the village to reach the little church where I picked up the Pennine Way again.

The path wanders back and forth for a while, crossing three or four bridges, passing a caravan park and skirting huge desolate stretches of felled trees. I’d decided to try and make a good pace this morning along what I knew would be fairly monotonous forest road, so it only took about 45 minutes to reach the rather incongruous toilet block at Blakehopeburnhaugh. I’d already made my toilet this morning, so I pushed on, joining the forest road proper just beyond the bridge.

There is very little to say about the next three and a bit miles, other than it was easy walking. Many of the trees beside the wide logging road are now gone, replaced by that stumpy blasted landscape that the felling operators leave behind. I passed a section being transformed from standing trees into trimmed and stacked logs and although the smell was wonderful, the sound and sight were not. I’m not naive about forestry operations, I know they are just another long term crop that need to be harvested at some point and I doubt there’s a better way to do it, but it doesn’t make the result any easier on the eye. Perhaps they could leave a screen of trees either side of the road, but harvest everything behind that, so at least Pennine Way walkers wouldn’t have to suffer 😉

At the Gibshiel gate I left the logging road and joined the path that leads up to Brownrigg Head. I got a bit of a surprise here. I remember how boggy this track was last time Chris and I walked it back in 2014. The path follows the old fence line, open moorland on one side and slowly recovering felled plantation on the other. The path had been squelchy and tussocky and you were never quite sure which side of the fence would serve you better. Now however, it was a hard core gravel and rock path to the south / west side of the fence. I had been dreading the path after all the rain from last night, but this meant my feet would stay dry. They may have stayed dry, but the rocky surface played buggeration with them. The stones were large and uneven and in many places they hadn’t been flattened properly. There’s no pleasing some people! (That’s just what Jesus said, sir!)

I stopped for a break on the step stile in the fence at the end of the forest section. The path drops steeply here, down beside the burn and then steeply up the other side to reach Padon Hill. I scoffed a Tunnocks caramel wafer and some juice and then headed downhill. It looked very wet at the bottom and I doubted my feet would stay dry for much longer. Which is ironic because this wasn’t the section I’d expected to be soggy! There was a small river running down over the rocks on the descent and I tried manfully to retain dry feet. I think there’s a mathematical equation that relates the amount of effort you expend trying to keep your feet dry, to how wet your feet actually get. I also think it’s an inverse relationship!

At the bottom, there was a flagged path, but unfortunately most of it was several inches underwater and it was difficult to tell just how deep it was. The flags were often covered in moss and grass as well as water, so it looked boggy as hell, but probably wasn’t. I deployed the bog depth tester and prodded my way forward tentatively. The water never over topped my boots, and I could always feel the flags when I prodded, but it was often several inches deep. I met my first south to norther here (apart from the captive specimens in the Forest View dining room), an American lady who was headed for Byrness. We chatted for a minute or two and she warned me it would get very wet soon and I told her it was dry now all the way to her Bed & Breakfast.

The Salomons kept most of the water out, but I could definitely feel damp socks inside after a while. The climb up the other side of the little valley was fine, albeit a little bit wet and I soon reached the moorland road to Redesdale. I stopped and had lunch here, a banana I’d picked up at breakfast, another TCW and the rest of my juice, which was getting quite warm.

Ahead, coming down from Whitley Pike, I could see three people, what looked like a solo walker and a pair together. I met the solo walker as I began the climb, he was a young Scottish lad, with huge beard and an even bigger backpack. He was camping the route and he also warned me it was going to get very wet soon. The pair that were only a short distance behind him were a young couple, the bloke looked fresh and keen and the lass looked completely done in, and not even slightly happy! I just said hello and pushed on up the hill.

The climb up to Whitley Pike is lovely, a thin path through the heather, rocky in places and providing great views back to Padon Hill. It was wet though. At the cairn there’s a Pennine Way marker block and an obvious path that stretches off into the heather, disappearing into the distance. Unfortunately the path on the ground doesn’t match the path on the OS map, so after checking my progress it looked like I was a couple of hundred yards off track. I debated cutting across the heather to look for the proper path, or even going back to the cairn and checking how I’d missed the path. In the end I decide to stick to the path I was on, but keep an eye on it, and if it began to deviate any more significantly, I’d reassess the situation.

The path was boggy as buggery and even the heathery grass either side of the path was wet, so in the end I just tried to avoid going thigh deep and jumped from tussock to tussock where I could. I met my final south to norther here. A young lady who had walked from her home in Staffordshire, to the start in Edale (adding three days to the journey) and was also he’s heading for Forest View. She’d got a month off work and had been backpacking it initially, but quickly decided to book accommodation along the route. She looked tired but happy and quite determined and I congratulated her in advance and wished her luck.

The path soon bent back towards the line on the OS map and I soon met a familiar double finger point. The path descended steadily now, getting wetter as it did so, crossing several newish looking wooden foot bridges and eventually met the B6320 that could take me into Bellingham.

In my mind, I felt like I was almost at the end. My memories of the previous walks seemed to convince me that this road had been crossed only a short while after leaving Bellingham. In reality there was at least another four miles to do, another 90 minutes maybe. The path beyond the road was drier and although it’s not really open moorland, it’s pleasant enough and there’s bog cotton flowering in places and the larks were up, singing their lungs out. I passed through the farm at Blakelaw, the snarling dog was well secured so I went unmauled and then followed the farm tracks to the road.

This was the first road walking of the Pennine Way so far and I was passed by a van with yellow flashing lights on it, as I was taking a photo of the Welcome to Bellingham sign. A moment later a huge lorry, carrying a mobile home came crawling down the narrow lane. It pulled onto the verge beside a caravan park and the escort vehicle blocked the road. I wasn’t prepared to wait while it backed into the park though, so I brazened it out and walked past it without waiting.

I walked into the town a few minutes later. My Bed & Breakfast is about a mile outside town, so I’d decided to eat in town, collect some supplies for the evening and then go and check in. I’d spend the evening in my room, getting back up to date with the journal and just relaxing!

Laura at Forest View had recommended the Fountain cafe and I dropped in there and had a huge plate of sausage and chips and a lovely (albeit quite expensive) milkshake. I couldn’t finish the meal, but I did finish the milkshake.

I stopped into the co-op and got some supplies, and my first ice cream of the year and then headed out for my B&B. I dropped down to follow the path beside the river, then over the bridge, past the cemetery and onto The Barn. I was greeted by my host and shown to my room. I dropped everything and jumped into the shower. It had been warm, I’d sweated an absolute bucket and I felt sticky and smelly. The shower was awesome and I then drank almost a litre of the Diet Coke I’d brought in the co-op.

I’ve booked breakfast for 7.30 and the weather looks like it’s going to turn tomorrow and I’m likely to get very wet. I’ll make a call when I get to Hadrian’s Wall whether I walk into Haltwhistle or get the bus from the Sill. No point walking that section in the rain, if I can walk it the next morning in the dry.

My feet are feeling fine, a little sore spot on the outside of my right big toe, but I loosened my boots a bit this morning, and that seems to have helped. Even having damp feet most of the afternoon hasn’t done much harm.

Right, that’s day three done, I’ll go back and try and get day two finished now.

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