Day 3 – “Rest Day” (4 miles)
First, a word (or two) of explanation. Officially, this was our rest day – we had decided it would be good to have two full hiking days, then a day to recover before the final two days. However, in discussing the schedule for the remaining days, we realized that the final day (Wooler to Lindisfarne) was going to be tricky – it’s a long hike, 18 miles, and has to be timed just right because Lindisfarne (a.k.a. Holy Island) is only accessible at certain times of day when the tide is out and the causeway is exposed. So we decided that it would be good to use the morning of our rest day to “pre-hike” part of what we would otherwise cover on the final day. This means that this part of the hike would be out of order – we’ll be backtracking tomorrow to hike the section that normally comes before this part – but everyone is okay with that!
After our customary Scottish breakfast in Jedburgh, we settled up with our host and drove to Wooler. We did our usual “car shuffle” to leave our little blue rental car in East Horton, a tiny village (really just a farm and a few houses) 4 miles east of Wooler. Then we parked Gilli’s car in the bus station car park in Wooler and set off. This part of the hike felt very familiar for Gilli, Phil and me as we grew up in Wooler – we’d been along these roads many times, though some of us not for many years. From the High Street, we went down Church Street and then along the Wooler Water (part of the Till River, and familiar to me from many summer days racing stick boats down the weir etc.). Then we headed east out of town and up Weetwood Bank – a bit of a steep climb at first, but nothing like what we hiked on Sunday! – with gorgeous views back over the valley to Wooler, with the Cheviot hills in the background. Then we came out on the moor at the top. I should mention that this was by far the best weather we had had so far, with plentiful bright sun – so it was a really lovely walk across the moor. We then descended down from the moor to the very old and very narrow Weetwood Bridge – it has a weight limit of two tons, and to avoid heavier traffic, there are posts on each side that only arrow narrow vehicles through (driving back across the bridge later set off all the proximity alarms on my very sensitive little car!). Then a 1 1/2 mile walk along the road to East Horton.
After driving back to Wooler, Bethany and I headed up to Berwick to pick up brother Steve who was coming up from London for just a couple of days. We then returned to Wooler, stopping on the way to visit the 11th century church in Ancroft (fortified to protect the villagers in the case of raids from the Scots) and checked in at the very lovely new No. 1 hotel on the High Street – this will be our “home base” for the next couple of nights. Dinner was at the Milan Italian restaurant directly across the road, and it was delicious. Then back to the hotel for an early night, in preparation for another long walking day tomorrow, from Kirk Yetholm to Wooler.
