LEJOG day 42: Haltwhistle to Bellingham

I write about ten versions of each blog post in my head as I walk along each day. Today's versions have included "I ignored my hostess and won", "I really hate the Pennine Way", "I've had enough and I'm coming home" and "well actually maybe it isn't so bad".

So as you know, yesterday my hostess warned me off the route I'd planned to take from Haltwhistle to rejoin the Pennine Way at Hadrian's Wall. She recommended instead that I rejoin the Pennine Way much earlier on the wall, by walking straight up the Burn from the B&B, on the basis that it would be easier and my route would be wet due to long grass.

My route involved remarkably little long grass, I didn't get wet, and the stretch of the Wall along which the Pennine Way runs is so up-and-down that people who follow it conplete almost as much ascent today as on the day they climb Cross Fell (which, if you recall, I also didn't do), which would have been the highest point on my journey if I'd bothered with it. So there we have it: best not to take walking advice from people who have to hold onto the walls as they walk around their house. The Indian she recommended was underwhelming, too.

So I was feeling quite smug with myself, and then I hit the Pennine Way and its inevitable blinking bogs and that feeling rapidly disappeared, because apparently the flagstone-laying parties didn't reach Northumberland. Even that wasn't so bad, but then I hit a forest and things rapidly went bad.

Forests make me nervous because you can't see where you're going and you really don't have to go far off the path before you can't see it at all. The fact that I have GPS doesn't really reassure me much. So when the fingerpost pointed me off the lovely track and into the conifers I wasn't very happy.

I was significantly less happy when, almost at the end of the forest, the path degenerated into knee-deep mud and water got into both boots a way reminiscent of my worst-ever Gower walk. With 10 miles still to go, on a 19-mile day. Of course as soon as I got out of the mud and the forest, I hit more bog.

I sat myself down on the first sufficiently dry bit of ground and planned how to get from Bellingham to my parents' lovely, warm, dry, mud-free home in Mid-Wales. Then I ate my lunch. Then I spotted people walking towards me, changed into dry socks, and attached myself to my new best friends, a couple called Phil and Lisa who I'm sure would have rather had an afternoon together without my presence but I didn't give them much choice.

Anyway, walking with people is fun and nice and better than walking and I cheered up almost immediately. Then when I arrived at my hostel, I met a guy who was literally speechless when I told him what I'm doing. The further North I get, the more impressed people are, unsurprisingly.

Distance walked: 19.75 miles
Time taken: 7h17
Percentage completed: 58.2%
Miles per £1 of boot: 5.01
Days since I was last rained on: 2
Lunch: egg and cress sandwich, cheese and onion crisps, apple juice; snacks included an apple and two cereal bars I've been carrying since Keld
Last night's B&B: Hall Meadows, Haltwhistle: shared bathroom, but with a bath! Otherwise excellent





Pointful stile for the collection

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