Day 4 – Wooler to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) (18 miles)
The final day! And 4 miles shorter than it normally would be, since we could skip the stretch between Wooler and East Horton that we walked on Monday. Just as well, since the weather forecast was pretty unambiguous: increasing chance of rain all through the morning, 100% probability of heavy rain by about 2pm. So we got as early a start as we could. The logistics with the cars were particularly complicated for this day – first we had to leave a car at the end of the first leg, which was Fenwick. Then Gilli would drop us off at East Horton, and would park her car near St. Cuthbert’s Cave, since she wanted to walk the stretch between the cave and Fenwick. After that we’d have to take the car from Fenwick back to the cave to get Gilli’s car. Both cars would then go to Beal, just before the causeway to Holy Island – the tide would still be in at that point so we wouldn’t be able to bring the cars the whole way. Gilli would bring us back to Fenwick to walk the stretch to Beal; we’d then do one more two-car shuffle and leave a car in the parking lot on Holy Island, and then we could walk the final stretch across the causeway. Phew!
Gilli and I did the initial setup of cars before breakfast, then after checking out of the hotel in Wooler, Allan, Phil, Bethany and I set out from the dropoff point in East Horton. The day was overcast from the start, and we found ourselves having to don rain gear far sooner than we had hoped to protect against a light drizzle. The walk to St. Cuthbert’s cave proved to be longer than we had thought so we took more than an hour and a half to get there – we had hoped it would be less than an hour. As planned, Gilli joined us at the cave, which was quite a bit more substantial than expected – in the guide book, it had looked quite small. In fact it was very large, though not deep. The cave is named for St. Cuthbert because after his death, monks of Lindisfarne hid his body here for some time to protect it from Viking raids.
Right after the cave, the path climbed up to top a small ridge, which gave us our first view of Lindisfarne in the distance. We continued on to Fenwick; a lovely walk, though definitely rather damp and very muddy in places, which slowed down our progress. One section, named “Dolly Gibson’s Lonnen”, follows the path of an ancient greenway along the edge of a wood – the guide book warned that this section could be “muddy after rain” and it did not disappoint. However, we made it to Fenwick without major damage. The moving of cars to end up at Beal took quite a while because the place where Gilli had to park to get to the cave was accessible only by very small and circuitous roads. So by the time we got to Beal, the tide was already out far enough to use the causeway. We had a very nice lunch at the Barn at Beal, and then took one of the cars out to the Island. Then it was time to drive back to Fenwick to walk the final stretch.
By this time the rain was coming down steadily. Gilli had decided to wait at the causeway with the intention of walking across to the Island with us. So the rest of us headed east from Fenwick, across the A1 motorway and down to the line of the main railway running north-south, from Aberdeen down to London. As it is understandably a very busy line, walkers are required to call the signalman from a phone by the line before they cross. As it turned out, we were instructed to wait for the next train to pass before crossing – which we did as quickly as we could! After crossing the railway, it was a relatively short hike down to the beach at Beal, where we walked the remaining distance to the causeway between lines of old concrete blocks – “tank traps” that used to be spread along beaches to block invaders during WWII.
There are two ways to complete the final stretch to Holy Island – either by the causeway road, or by foot over the sands. We had always thought that we would go via the sands, as it is a little more romantic and closer to the way St. Cuthbert would have crossed. However, the sand crossing is slow – an hour longer than by the road – and must be completed in bare feet, and given the weather, we decided to go via the road. Gilli decided she would prefer not to walk after all, which was a very wise decision – though it was satisfying to complete the final leg of the hike, it was a pretty miserable walk – three miles in pouring rain, with no footpath, and having to step aside constantly onto either wet sand or marshy grass to let cars past. But even though we were soaked and footsore, it was a wonderful feeling when we finally arrived at the “Welcome to Lindisfarne” sign. A final few hundred yards completed the 62-mile hike, which ends at the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory, of which St. Cuthbert himself was Prior for many years.
