Today we finally crossed the border in to Scotland on our 33km walk with 800m of climbing from Byness to Mount Hooley
We left Byness this morning at 9am after an 8am breakfast. Once we had left there was the usual steep climb up out of the valley and on to ridge. However the path was very muddy which led to a lot of sliding around and overall slow walking.
We were the last to leave the guest house this morning out of the other Pennine Way walkers so it was a relief to see them on the ridge to know that we had gone the right way. We caught up the others who were unfortunately suffering from foot problems and went on ahead so we could continue listening to our audio book, War of the worlds by H.G Wells.
From the Inn we stayed at last night to the end, Kirk Yetholm is about 45km. There are two options, one, to do it all in one go which someone from our Inn tried to do by setting off at 5am this morning. Otherwise you walk halfway and due to the lack of accommodation the Inn from last night comes and picks you up to take you back to the Inn. Then the next morning they take you back to where you left off. We are doing a third option which we made up where we walk the majority of the way today then finish the last bit off tomorrow. To do this we have found an bunk house on Airbnb which is just off the path where we are staying the night.
As we were walking along we saw a Mountain goat with very long horns that was quite a sight. We tried to get close to take a photograph before it ran away.
The most exciting bit about today was when we were walking along and Will was suddenly waist deep in a bog. It was a hidden bog as it didn’t look that deep but once you stepped in it, it was a different story. The funniest thing was the quote from Will before he went through it ‘ Take the direct route’. Unfortunately we weren’t able to take a photo of him as we thought it was better to get him out first. This was tough as we didn’t want to fall in ourselves but luckily there was a plank near by which we could use. In the photos you will see that afterwards we tried to find out how deep it was by using the plank and comparing it to Will.
Will luckily dried out pretty quickly meaning he didn’t get too cold from the wind.
We stopped for lunch where we were enjoying our sandwiches when a very weathered man came up to us who looked like he had been walking non stop for the last 50 years. He said that where we were going was very far away, over 6 hours. This luckily didn’t decrease our high spirits, we later discovered that he didn’t really know what he was talking about.
We arrived at the bunk house where we were staying at around 5:30pm which is self catered accommodation. Luckily we had brought food from two nights ago so we had something to eat.
Tomorrow is only 12km and fingers crossed we don’t have any disasters, we should get to Kirk Yetholm by 11:30am for a pub lunch.
Best wishes,
Ned and Will Battersby
