Garry and Marie walk South to North

  A game of two halves for Garry's walk today. The first half was over Troughend Common and Blakehope Fell, which was fairly undulating and very wet underfoot in parts. There were some slabbed stepping stones but these were sporadic. Garry found this rather monotonous but broken up by glimpses of the Cheviot Hills, his first sighting of the Scottish hills beckoning.  He skirted the edge of Kielder forest. It was quite quiet in the forest compared to the sound of the birds over the common and moor.                                          The forest tracks were easy to follow and walk on, although they were quite undulating. There was a lot of replanting happening within the forest.  My day was spent with Alfie, who has an upset stomach and needed to visit the garden a number of times during  the night. After we dropped Garry off, we had a gentle wander around Bell...

  We started off in Ladyhill, by a Falconry centre with a little bit of road walking, quickly followed by a really good forestry track. The track went on for a couple of miles, apparently past a beautiful waterfall, but this was nowhere to be seen! Garry skirted around the edge of a farmyard, Horneystead farm. He then came out on a road and was faced with a choice,  a) Keep to the Pennine way which was around a set of fields, or,  b) go on a slightly longer route through lanes. He chose the latter. This is where he saw some sheepdogs rounding up sheep.                                                  From this section of the Pennine Way, Garry could see Shitlington Crags in the distance, no climbers there today His pace quickened as he was due to meet me! Climbing through Shitlington Crags was much easier than yesterday's climbing through Hadrian's ...

  It was raining as we all set off from Rowfoot car park this morning on the old railway line. Me and Alfie turned around after 2.5 miles and Garry continued and was soon in Haltwhistle, a small market town made famous by being in the middle of the UK.         Garry went over the old Alston Arches viaduct and through the town centre , he then followed the Haltwhistle Burn up to the old Military Road.                     We all met up at Burnhead, at Cawfield quarry, a disused quarry now filled with water.  We soon found Hadrian's Wall and walked alongside it for a number of miles. This was extremely arduous with lots of ascents and descents. We should have expected this but the weather was against us also. We had a number of soakings.             We walked along with anticipation of seeing the Sycamore Gap. We were disappointed when we neared it as there was a group of...

Today Garry used the South Tyne Trail, which is the site of the old Alston Line, that used to link Haltwhistle in Northumberland with Alston in Cumbria.  He started at Alston early this morning in the drizzle ( no need for a lift to the start today, so a lie in for me!) Just past Alston, was the old Cumberland/ Northumberland border as Garry entered Northumberland. The line can still be used to travel from Slaggyford from Alston. The South Tynedale Railway is a narrow-gauge heritage railway that operates a 5-mile section of the former Alston line, connecting Alston and Slaggyford.       Much of the track was through countryside alongside fields of sheep.             After 5 miles of so, Garry reached the station of Slaggyford, with a road crossing over the train track.  Continuing along the track, he reached a viaduct by Lambley. Garry needed to climb up and over the viaduct as the line stopped in Lambley and there was a n...