The journey home
The next day we were waiting at the bus stop in Town Yetholm when a couple came out of a house opposite and asked us if we wanted a lift to Keld which was hugely generous of them. The night before we had convinced Paul and Charlie that they would be OK getting on the same bus as us to make the connections to the train we were all getting from Barrow. I think they were a bit surprised when we didn't get on it at our stop but we met up in Keld and travelled on to Barrow together before saying our goodbyes as we were all booked seats in different parts of the train.
Conclusion
I was going to try to come up with a list of things we had learned which may be useful for others but pretty much everything went to plan.
I put a list of all the accommodation we used earlier in the thread and if anyone has any questions about that or anything else then you can either post or PM me.
Speaking of accommodation Forest View in Byrness is on the market. It will need someone special to take it on but, for the right person, there is a really good business here. As PW walkers we also have a vested interest in finding a new owner as it would make the last sections of the PW a very different proposition if Forest View closed.
Most of the route is well signed but it is not consistent so you do have to keep an eye on it.
We navigated using the two AtoZ guides which have all the OS maps of the route though, annoyingly, the two books work in different directions so whether you are going north - south or south - north you have to start turning the pages in the opposite direction half way. We also took my ancient gps and used it twice to give us an accurate location. My son was recording the trip on Strava so, if he had connection, we could look at this to see if we were on the PW path, though it showed little else it was good for confirmation that we were still on route. We had with us the Trailblazer guide which we would read in the evening as we went through the route for the next day but didn't use on the trail.
It was interesting to see how all the different places we stayed and ate and drank dealt with the covid situation. I do wonder if we missed out on meeting more people because of this.
We had an absolutely wonderful time, it was great. I can not recommend it enough to anyone.
While originally, 4 years ago, we were just walking the Pennine Way because we wanted to we, or to be more accurate our friends and family, have raised £2328 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.