Back on the road again

Saturday 16 June – Bellingham to Byrness

It was so hard to get ‘back on the road again’ after two wonderful rest days with Gillian and Michael. We’d gone for Gillian’s Seven Bridges walk around Morpeth, crossing and recrossing the River Wansbeck, a delightful river indeed. We’d gone into Newcastle on the train for a whistle-stop tour, including Newcastle’s famous Millennium Bridge, dubbed the Blinking Eye by locals as it regularly opens and lifts up to allow shipping through (suggest you google it!). We’d had lots of family time, including with Peter’s two aunts, and lots of time to relax, even watching some World Cup football. (Thanks so much, Gillian & Michael!)

But we have more walking to do, so this morning it was time to get back on the road.

Gillian dropped us off at Bellingham, we shouldered our packs once more, and soon were back in the countryside, back on the Pennine Way, under a cloudy sky. The forecast was for the possibility of some rain.

The first part of the day was reminiscent of others, fields and sheep and moorlands and heather, nothing particularly remarkable but still peaceful and enjoyable. We weren’t particularly elevated so the walking was easy. A chilly wind sprang up, though, accompanied by the clouds lowering, and just after our lunch stop the drizzle started. It remained our companion for much of the rest of the day.

In the early afternoon we reached the outskirts of Redesdale Forest, part of a vast plantation forest occupying much of northern Northumberland including the even bigger Kielder Forest. We learned that combined it was the biggest forest in Britain and one of the largest plantation forests in northern Europe. While such forest isn’t exactly the most scenic, it at least provided a change, and for the rest of the day we walked along a forestry road all the way to Byrness.

To keep ourselves occupied, we came up with names for the ever-changing drizzle and mist that now dogged us, creating our own hierarchy. Lightest is ‘mizzle’ (a misty drizzle), which we’d picked up from Paul. A bit heavier and it’s ‘drist’ (drizzly mist). Then there’s drizzle, and next ‘’drain’ (drizzly rain). Still heavier, and it’s rain. You can probably tell by now that the forestry road wasn’t very interesting…

There is of course one further level, and it’s called – wait for it – a thunderstorm! And that’s just what happened to us, a mere ten minutes before we arrived at our B&B. The skies opened, the rain sheeted down, and a clap of thunder rattled around the hills. So we arrived a little on the damp side – though just then the rain stopped just as suddenly as it had begun, and within half an hour we had sunshine and blue skies. Now if we’d only been ten minutes earlier… never mind, we have wet weather gear, and everything dried quickly.

Surprisingly, we were the only people in the B&B, The Byrness, so we got star treatment – very welcome hot drinks on arrival, free run of the guest lounge, our choice of bathrooms, and to cap it off, a three-course meal so we didn’t even need to leave the house!

The thunderstorm did have one final act – a lightning bolt succeeded in taking out the power for a couple of hours for not just the village but quite a large area around. Fortunately our hosts had got dinner cooked, and had just finished baking the dessert (a delicious Greek orange cake) so it didn’t disrupt our evening too badly.

Distance today: 24km / 15 miles

The Pennine Way through moorland and heather: