Border Walk Day 2 Longtown to Newcastleton

 
The word for today was WET.
The other word was COCKUP
It started well with a very nice double English walkers breakfast. You have to sign a disclaimer to receive this and they alert the local first responders just in case the arteries pack in half way through the sausage.
Three ladies on another breakfast table were discussing erections. I trust they were engineers of some sort.
I left Longtown well, albeit in the wrong direction, having decided that the path by the River Esk looked very attractive.

I climbed over a small fence and down some derelict stone steps to the bridge footings and followed a vague path along the riverbank. This soon disappeared and some sheep took refuge on an island. I checked the map. I wasn’t on the path whioch was further over there….<------   Bugger. I persevered and the path joined my general line near a tea van on the A7. More persevering brought me to a bastle house, an unusual church and a wobbly suspension bridge which even in 1906, according to a warning notice, was limited to one person at a time. I wobbled across and checked the map again.

This was all wrong. This way lead into the grounds of Lord and Lady Wekillwalkers, barely civilised but very posh with a long line of cattle stealing, murder, kidnap and double parking.

I rewobbled across the bridge and, braving some timid but frisky beef, I joined the A7. Luckily, membership of the A7 is free. I hobbled into Scotland in a rain storm.

I hobbled through Canonbie as the rain pelted down in damn great hairy Borders lumps to the tune of the 1812 Overture with just the cannon and a bit of flashing.
As I hobbled through the deserted street of Rowanburn, the rain was merely heavy and only became torrential as I crossed back into England over the Liddel Water.
Bugger.
Later, it rained some more as I finally left the roadwalking to join a bridleway and entered no maps land. No maps land is the two or three kilometre space where my improvised “route” (and I use the word sarcastically) fell off the end of the Carlisle map before entering the Hawick and Eskdale map. Thus, the Haltwhistle and Stevenage map or whatever it was, was at home snuggling up to all my other maps. Nice and warm and dry.
I did the only thing could do in such circumstances. I got lost.
This was resolved by sneaking through somebody’s garden and scuttering up by a plantation and through an extremely wet hayfield. I regained a position on a map which I had in my possession and plodded on towards Newcastleton, crossing back into Scotland on the way.

At some point the sun came out and, as I stood there gently steaming, a car pulled up and an old chap with a Londonesque accent said “What are you doing. You’re too fucking old to be doing that.” “I’m walking to Berwick,” I evaporated.
“You silly bugger” said the man. “You won’t get there today”
“Yes I know”
“Well, as long as you’re all right” he said and roared off.
Eventually, I arrived in Newcastleton and found the caravan site which let me camp for ten quid. The scoff at the Liddesdale Hotel was Rack of lamb and it were actually quite fab. I stayed for a while then went back to the tent for a bit of a sleep. The landlord insited on calling me “Young man”. they do a nice line in irony in the Borders

I quite like Newcastleton. Its real name is Copsawholme and the locals just call it “Holme”. I expect this casues no end of jollity in the Borders Police force. “Where do you live, sonny?”
“Holme” Ossifer.   “Tha’ll do laddie, now where do you live?”
I did 19 miles 1400 feet of upness and my feet were sore. If you ever walk the Border, there’s better ways than this one.

Border Walk Day 1 Carlisle to Longtown

The first day of this epic of sore feet and comedy waymarking should carry some kind of subtitle about Adam and Eve and King Arthur. This may well become clear later.
Or possibly not.

I started with a pie. It was a steak and onion from a Carlisle pie shop and it was very hot and very nice. It was about the time that I’d burned my tongue for the third time (hunger/greed/impatience) and just before I arrived at the fountain in the underpass by the Sands Centre that it started raining. In fact it bounced down. This was to set a pattern. I put on full waterproofs. This was to set another pattern. I wandered off on the riverbank. The river was the River Eden. It leads to the Solway, which is where I was going.
The day was one of rain then fairly heavy but short showers. I got fairly wet.

The walk along by the River Eden is very easy. It has just the one short shock of an uphill but in general it flows through cow pastures (with cows) on a easy grassy path with no contours to disturb the rhythm. At one point it does go through a marsh, where the line of the path and the line of the river and the mapping thereof bear no relation at all to each other, but in general, it arrives at Rockcliffe, where one of the local cattle was busy eating the cricket pitch and where I was greeted enthusiastically by a border collie puppy, with little in the way of excitement or effort.

I pushed Eastwards on lanes, crossing the M6 and joining Cycle Route Number 7 for a short section of pleasant railway path – and thence to Arthuret Church.

Arthuret Church is supposed to stand on the site of a sixth century church which possibly involved some post-Roman British Vortigern/Arthur type of anti-English warlord and Christian to boot. It is now a very large medieval church with an incredibly crowded graveyard, and, just a little along the scarp, an ancient well dedicated to St Michael, the Patron saint of lady’s sandwiches and upper middle class underwear.

It wasn’t too far through cow and horse pastures, complete with you-know-whats to the Border township of Longtown.
This has a bloody history including two 16th century battlesites and general Border lawlessness and more, organised general warfare involving large armies. There was no evidence of this in the Graham Arms (Grahams being one of the local reiver clans) and I had the steak pie and some beer and repaired to my B&B for a lie down. This would be my only B&B of the trip.
It was 15 and a half miles and about 500 feet of uphill if you’re really really careful about counting all of the contours.