Day 65 - Bellingham to Byrness

We woke up to a beautiful bright blue sky but it was quite chilly in the van. Our pitch was the only one still in the shade at 11am and it was nearest to the road and the dog walking area! I was quite sad about the lack of  sunshine on the van as, after dropping The Walker off at 9 and returning to the site, I was all set to sit in the sunshine and read my paper. Instead I swept and cleaned! At least the site had reasonable toilet and shower facilities, even if the internet was useless! Moan over!

I wasn't far from the eastern edge of Kielder Water and was keen to see the largest man-made lake in Europe and the highest reservoir in Britain, plus the place with the most (44%) of the red squirrel population in Britain - disappointed that I didn't see one. I only had a couple of hours, so I drove along the dam wall, then walked the mile by the lake along the track to the Kielder Tower Visitors Centre, which had some really good presentations about the area. Apparently there is a reasonable path around the whole 27 miles of lake - another trail to do in the future!

Kielder Water

From Bernie:
Today's walk  14.8 miles     :     Cumulative  817.6 miles

Just thought I'd kick-off with a pronunciation point today: Bellingham is pronounced 'Bellinjum' by locals - if you're ever in Northumberland you need to know that or you could be directed to goodness knows where! We were here last when we walked the 'Ravenber' in 2005 & I recall the campsite being full of exhausted Pennine Way walkers.... now we were amongst them, though at least I'm not carrying my house on my back, that's the manager's responsibility!

At the edge of moorland above Bellingham

Headed north this morning on a walk which, I imagined, would be very similar to yesterday but the terrain proved to be much firmer & the views more expansive. I would have loved to have included Kielder Water in the walk & am quite envious of the manager's excursion but to walk further west would have involved even more mindless miles of endless forestry plantations, or would have meant missing out on some of the Border towns which I'm really looking forward to over the next few days.

Whitley Pike

My 'Pennine Way' guidebook quotes Dante on the approach to Kielder Forest: 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here', & the approach to Europe's largest plantation is certainly forbidding! I think I was lucky; the route I followed took me through recently harvested or replanted areas &, only briefly, was I in woodland as oppressive as yesterday.

Approaching Kielder Forest

Highlight of the Day: for the first time on LeJog Les made me a sandwich to take for lunch (that's not the highlight!), mainly because we had some ham that needed eating! I sat down on a rock just before Kielder Forest to enjoy my lavish feast of ham roll, chocolate bar & cider. After a few minutes a fox pushed out of the bracken onto the track, some 10 yards or so from me, & stood watching me eat. I finished my roll & only when I reached for my camera did it amble on into the ferns - quite a special moment.

Not safe, even in the middle of a forest - almost mown down by a juggernaut!

Beer of the Day: I'd hoped to visit 200 pubs on this expedition - 1 at lunch time & 1 at walk's end each day - but pubs are becoming few & far between. Today's hotel boasted it was the last for 25 miles & even called its bar the 'First& Last'. Tried a pint of the Hadrian Brewery's 'Gladiator Bitter'; dark, malty but not over-sweet, this was pleasant if unremarkable.

Song of the Day: a band called 'Trees' recorded a couple of albums about 40 years ago, neither of them brilliant but I liked them & they have become almost 'cultish' reissues. I spent some time wandering through Kielder Forest trying to remember song titles & tunes.... !

But no welcome for LeJoggers.... Hmm!