The wee road to the car park was full of wildlife, Rabbits as expected, Hares running in front at 20mph, Deer by side of road, three Ducks just sitting in the middle of the road and then the real star….
Bright white headlights were on main beam, just above them appeared a large white Owl, flying gracefully from side to side along tree lined road. Must have done this for about a 1/4 mile before peeling off into fields. Amazing, maybe worth the trip just for that!
Arrived at car park and at 3.45am there was already a car there. Later found the occupants ‘up tops’.
Boots on and set off towards Scald Hill; first few hundred metres were tough, the old lungs weren’t used to this!
4am..
From Scald Hill
Climbing up could see patches of mist lying all around, looked like lakes or streams filling valleys.
Now heading up The Cheviot, lungs getting better, just kept stopping to see how the sunrise was progressing… yeah really!
Finally above the cloud and mist a small orange dot appeared, progressing quickly to a big full sun, eventually reflecting off the North Sea and catching distant cumulus clouds.
The summit of The Cheviot was now flattening out making walking a lot easier. Just over the top of the deserted landscape I thought I heard a woman’s voice, then a few hundred meters later two tents appeared with two young student lasses and a young lad with a huge smile! The blonde lass had just been forced to cancel her world tour after visiting Canada and Australia. The darker one, the chatty one, was from Europe and was loving being in this country. Turns out we both came from Durham, she lives within hearing distance of my snoring! She goes to the College I once worked at! The young lad was the experienced wild camper having been brought up by his parents to have these adventures.
Really enjoyed our chats but time to move on down the stone pathway towards a sign post on Cairn Hill and decision time on which way to go. Planned to go to Kings Seat but having walked from Kirk Yetholm to The Schil last year became tempted to go there, only three miles! Feeling good.
From The Cheviot
Sun reflecting on North Sea, Cotton Grass and pathway on The Cheviot
This turned out to be a bad decision…
What a three miles! It runs around a horseshoe. Going down the steep Auchopecairn started to get discomfort behind left knee, which got worse the further down I went, then the right leg started to have same issues. Never experienced this before so decided, unwisely, to continue down towards Red Cribs and the ‘Hut’. Now then there was a small matter of a few bulls standing on the path ahead, not a fan! As I walked towards them they started to turn and walk away, but did a slight detour to avoid getting too close.
upload photoThe last climb up to The Schil, then I've only got to walk back!
Diving board or stile?
Really looking forward to climbing back up Auchopecairn, with these more Dodgylegs than usual! Stopped to work out how to get around a bog and a fell runner appeared behind me, he just ran through the bog although wasn’t happy his left leg disappeared nearly up to his knee! He kind of just disappeared, but left a trail of footprints to follow! The Bulls once again moved out of the way so just kept on pathway heading slowly on my way, making about nine or ten stops to sit and admire the views! Finally arrived at the scree on top and headed on pathway back towards Cairn Hill.
Some of the views I really needed to sit down to appreciate!
The wild campers had walked up from car park via Langleeford which they said was very boggy but no where near as steep as he Cheviot so decided to give that a go for my return. Don't think legs would cope with descending The Cheviot! This was a strange wee path constantly crossing back and forth over Harthope Burn. Legs were terrible when climbing or descending but not too bad where flattish. After a few stops, to sit and enjoy the views, I saw a guy behind along pathway, had only seen six people so far. This guy stopped for a chat, found he was a local nature warden, also from mountain rescue, he advised we should walk down together incase knee problems worsened or caused me to have an ‘incident’. We were heading to the same car park; he had followed me up The Cheviot at 4am. He was a smashing bloke, just taking his time walking a safe distance behind, chatting all the way. The path continued to criss cross the stream all the way down, parts had disappeared in landslip, others were boggy. I did have a slight slip on a gravel bank, the exact place a guy fell and broke his leg so the Air Ambulance had to be called to collect him, he told me!
This seemed like a long four miles but finally, after passing a number of walkers just setting out. we reached our destination. I thanked him for his company and for being so kind.
The road out was fairly busy, as were the carparks… temp 24C!
Stopped for a cooling ice cream and drink before heading home, struggling to keep awake!
So that was a good early morning 16.6 mile trip up The Cheviots… sitting here with melting ice packs!
Thanks to all the replies from Forum Members offering advice re Walking Injuries post.
