DAY 11 - Alston -> Once Brewed, 40.61km
The eleventh day of the trek was a late start. I took the time to enjoy my bed and have a coffee before a relatively late start at 10am, as at this point my intention was to walk to Greenhead, which was a relatively easy walk at around 27km.
The sun uncharacteristically shines down as I easily made my way through the valley with little climbs along the way, which I was more than happy about. It was a fairly uneventful albeit enjoyable walk to Greenhead, other than one little blip where I slipped on a log and belly flopped into the dirt.
However, about an hour or so before I was to arrive at Greenhead, my mum texted me saying a family friend had recommended a great place to stop just 2 hours further on from there called Once Brewed, although acknowledging I probably wouldn’t have time to get there.
At this point my intention had been to take 3 more days after this to finish: Greenhead to Bellingham; Bellingham to Byrness; and finally Byrness to Kirk Yetholm. However, pushing on this further 2 hours had me thinking just maybe I’d be able to shave a day off which was a very enticing prospect. It was a nice day, I was feeling good and knew I could still make it to Once Brewed before 7pm if I carried on, so when I reached Greenhead I decided I would indeed carry on.
This eventually brought me to one of the most notable landmarks of the Pennine Way: a rather dishevelled looking wall named after some bloke called Hadrian. Although my first ever visit to this landmark was visually aided by the evening sun descending and beautifully illuminating the wall as it stretched off into the distance, I definitely wasn’t a fan of the constant up and down. The muppets that built it should have been considerate and added escalators.
After finally reaching my campsite at Once Brewed after my second marathon day of the trek, I set up my tent and went off to grab some food. Having made it this far I had around 90km left to the finish line.
90km in 2 days. 2 more days of walking over a marathon each day. My feet can complain when I’m home.
DAY 12 - Once Brewed -> Byrness, 52.1km
The night before I’d decided I was going to skip Bellingham and try to push straight through to Byrness. Well over 50km walk. I knew I’d have to get a pretty good shift on.
So at 6.30am I was back off up Hadrian’s Wall and met with a stunning view of the morning sunrise: the perfect way to start off a day that would eventually be overshadowed by the battering my feet took.
I quickly passed the Sycamore Gap. I was supposed to see another renowned landmark; a pillar of natural beauty stood proudly as the centrepiece to this section of a famed world heritage site. What I saw was a tree stump surrounded by a fence.
Moving on.
An hour or so of walking and I was off the wall and heading off towards Northumberland National Park. A welcome rare walk through forest eventually led me out and back across fields and a few hills.
I caught up to and briefly joined another walker of the Pennine Way, and after some rare but enjoyable extended conversation with a fellow hiker, eventually I pushed on alone and had reached Bellingham before 1pm. I grabbed myself some lunch and stocked up on Ibruprofen, which I was certain would be needed given I was 27km into my walk and had only just reached the halfway point.
As the oh so familiar rain reappeared and I approached the moors with the wind battering me, I started to get a growing pain in my ankle. The more I trudged through the bogs the more the pain grew but after a lovely ibuprofen snack I could do nothing but keep pushing on. Another section of Northumberland Forest slowly approached in the distance, the final 2 hour section of the walk that was incredibly enticing due to the likelihood it would shelter me from the wind and provide a relatively easy and enjoyable path to follow.
However, as I reached the bottom of a valley right before a final climb up to the forest, I got a searing pain on my foot as if it had been set on fire. Given my feet had been soaked the entire day and had now walked well over 35km I knew it was a blister on the bottom of my foot that has gone.
Limping to the finish line isn’t fun at the best of times, but when you’re limping up a steep hill that’s covered in slippery mud from the constant rain and you have to battle through overgrown ferns and plants that have encroached the path to reach the top, it’s significantly less fun.
Eventually, I did drag myself to the top, and the pain in my foot slowly receded to a state of bearable to walk on as I followed the forest line. As I reached a path that took me directly into the forest, of course I got the exact same pain in my other foot another blister. Perfect.
Oh well, at least I have a nice rare walk along a nice flat forest path for the final hour or so to reach my campsite… don’t I?
Surely?
Nah.
Bring on the final 10km of tarmac road that constantly dips down and climbs back up as it weaves through the trees. But at least I could enjoy the natural beauty of the forest around me… couldn’t I?
Surely?
Nah.
Piles of logs and a sea of tree stumps on one side of the road with a uniform block of trees on the other, at least for the initial half of the walk. It was a shame really, to imagine what the forest would have looked like in its natural state to being reduced to more closely resembling a building site.
But eventually I finally hobbled my way to my campsite where I could slump down and finally strip off my soaking wet shoes and socks and give my feet the freedom to roam around. And of course by roam around I mean walk around the site at a top speed of half a mile an hour as I got worried looks from the holiday goers in their caravans. Eventually a man came out, feeling sorry for the drenched cripple haunting the site, and directed me to the ‘kitchen’ I had been trying to find to cook my little packet of mac and cheese (which turned out to just be a shed with a sink in it).
One. More. Day.
DAY 13 - Byrness -> Kirk Yetholm, 43km
I woke up bright and early once again, sat in my tent at 6am using up every last plaster I had to cover my blisters and throwing on 3 pairs of socks as I mentally prepared myself for my third marathon in a row.
I was dreading taking those first steps, unsure on whether my feet would be in agony from the first mile or if the precautions I had taken would be sufficient to make it bearable. Luckily, I was back to walking like a normal person so was feeling pretty good as I set off from my campsite around 7am.
The initial climb up out of the forest and onto the hills was difficult but brought me to a height I would be staying around for a while with little climbing. I surely made my way across the hills as the weather swung between sun, rain and wind, the first 15km or so going by pretty easily.
Eventually I had my first big climbs of the day and passed the halfway point as I reached a peak with a perfect view of the Cheviot in the distance, an 815m hill. Luckily reaching the peak of the Cheviot was not part of the Pennine Way, I merely had to climb partway up it before doubling back. The fact my ankle was slowly starting to go back to the feeling that it had been whacked with a baseball bat meant I was more than happy to give the peak a hard pass.
As I reached this point though I turned around and got a stunning view of the route I has just taken across the hilltops. As you walk it’s hard to get a proper grasp of just how far you have come. So when you look off into the distance and your start point of the day is completely obscured by the endless rolling hills you’ve just spent the last 6 hours climbing over, it is a very satisfying feeling.
A descent along a ridgeline followed by another climb up a hill left me with just 10km left between me and the completion of my walk from Manchester to Scotland. My feet and my ankle were screaming at me but I was so close to finishing that the adrenaline was forcing me through the various rolling hills that preceded the final full descent.
After conquering what I thought was the last big hill, I struck up some brief conversation with a passing hiker when from somewhere down the hill I heard a muffled “OI!”
I looked down and there grinning up at me, his head sticking up over the tufts of grass lining the hillside, was my dad, with my mum following closely behind. I knew they were going to be waiting for me at the end point but I couldn’t help but think “what a muppet” followed by growing a big grin on my face as I gave them both a big hug.
It was admittedly a great boost as we made our way back down the way they came, them pointing out the car park they believed to be the end point of the Pennine Way. When I finally took those steps off the hill and amongst the cars I felt a wave of elation thinking I had finally pushed my way to the finish as I slumped down to the ground in exhaustion.
But just to seal the deal I checked my Pennine Way map on my phone to make sure that… wait… what do you mean there’s 2 more kilometres?!
FOR F-
Up I got, bag back over my shoulders, and powered off down the road to reach the actual end point. 20 minutes later and I slumped down in Kirk Yetholm on a bench under a big sign of the Pennine Way… a much more believable end point than some random car park.
As I sipped my free pint from the nearby pub (a worthy reward for walking over 400km), I ached all over. I sat in the car, stripping off my shoes and socks to reveal feet that looked like they had had a map of the Pennines etched onto them. But I felt nothing but satisfied.
I’d wanted to do this to prove to myself I’d be able to do it 8 times over in New Zealand to complete the 3000km trail. Completing this meant there was now absolutely nothing stopping me.
4 months of consistently hiking 25km a day? Bring it on.
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