LEJOG Day 62: Byrness to Jedburgh

Weather: Partly cloudy, with a drenching storm to close

Distance covered today: 32.2km (20.0mi)

Last night's B&B: Forest View Walkers Accom (£28.50)

Cumulative distance: 1242.4km (772.0mi)/ % Complete: 64.9%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 62 (click!)

Yesterday was a real turning point in my journey. For a start, and after flirting with the border for some days, I am now finally and irrevocably in Scotland! Secondly, I have finally left the Pennine Way for good or ill. Thirdly, Sherpavan has finished doing its thing, so I am once again burdened with my full pack. Yesterday, I also completed by far the longest leg of my journey to date. It nearly killed me, but I made it! And finally, and perhaps, symbolically, I met two genuine LEJOGers yesterday for the first time, though one of them was doing his version in stages. No time for personal anecdotes from the past then! There is far too much current business to relate!

In an earlier post, I spoke about my fascination with the changing of accents as I have travelled through the country. I need to add to those impressions, particularly now that I have been round and about in Jedburgh, my first Scottish town. I talked earlier of the way that the accents blend into each other near the regional borders, with a broad strip at the interface where the accents mingle in a curious and hard to define mixture of both accents. I feel I need now to refine that insight. It seems that where there has been a history of some antagonism between regional groups, the change in accent is much more sudden. For instance, the change in accent from Cornwall to Devon to Somerset was smooth and almost indefinable, but over Offa’s Dyke, it was abrupt and distinct. On the English side, they spoke mostly with English accents and on the Welsh side with Welsh accents. The border between Lancashire and Yorkshire was equally sharply delineated, perhaps relating to the long-held antagonisms across the border between those two counties since the time of the Wars of the Roses.  Now of course the same is true of the Scottish borders. This all seems logical and is hardly earth-shattering, but I find it nonetheless interesting, and I certainly hadn’t heard about it before and certainly not experienced it. It may of course be nonsense, but who knows? No doubt someone will have researched it properly!

It was though very interesting to actually cross the border. For the past few days, I have been hearing all about the nasty Scots and their raids south of the border. Now it’s all about the nasty English and their raids north of the border. In fact The Reivers consisted of both English and Scottish families and they were a law unto themselves in all the border districts in those lawless times. Their impact on the architecture is quite obvious, with buildings designed almost as mini-forts where the animals could be brought in to the ground floor, entrance to which would be securely barred, and the residents would defend the building from tiny windows above. The buildings were made almost entirely of stone to resist any attempt to burn out the residents. Nevertheless, many animals in the surrounding fields would be lost, and as a result, the residents would have to band together and go off reiving themselves to steal animals back just in order to survive.

The days of the Reivers were numbered when James I of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as James VI after the death of the childless Liz I, thereby uniting the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, who spent some time here in Jedburgh. Earlier today, I visited her house, which, though much modified, did indeed have many aspects of Reiver architecture about it. I was once again fascinated by her difficult and tragic life and all the intrigues around it, which eventually led to Liz I agreeing to chop her head off. Clearly, Mary is still much revered in these parts.

So, enough of the history lesson! My departure from my Pennine penance is much more topical, even if I did do it along the great Roman road of Dere Street, which runs like an arrow all the way from York to Edinburgh, crossing the Way just where I needed to get off it! It was indeed strange to leave the Way. I closed my Way guidebook for the final time, and suddenly I was a free man again, able to plot my eccentric path on good, old-fashioned OS maps in a reprisal of the sensation of leaving Offa’s Dyke some time ago. Veronica had also mapped my path using Google satellite imagery and had kindly confirmed to me that Dere Street would be reasonably easy to follow. I can’t tell you how reassuring that insight was to me, because on a 30km hike, you can’t afford to go badly wrong!

The previous evening, in the basic accommodation in Byrness, there was a full house of walkers and cyclists, with so much testosterone flying around that you could just about smell it. Most of the walkers were part-time Pennine Wayers, choosing to do the difficult 39km (24mi) leg of the Way from Byrness to Kirk Yetholm as an individual challenge. Almost all of them were experienced long-distance hikers and the talk was all about their war stories of exploits on far-flung trails. I was the only LEJOGer among them and also the senior citizen, so I had a certain status, which was very much enhanced when someone noticed that I was also the only one among them who had managed to connect to the net via a satellite connection to our host’s router! My street cred definitely notched a little higher! The fact that I had actually out-paced my much younger name-sake on the perilous voyage from Bellingham was also noted, but I really was pleased to take myself off to bed. I didn’t feel comfortable among them at all. Fortunately, they all left a few hours before me so that they could make the leg to Kirk and still catch public transport back home to be ready for work tomorrow!

In any case, I got my comeuppance on the leg to Jedburgh, when Richard bore down relentlessly on me from behind. He had the wild and staring eyes, and I could see instantly that he was a LEJOGer even though we were both still on the Way. He hails from Perth in Australia, and is doing LEJOG in three stages. He told me that he had retired from BP a couple of years ago after a lengthy career. What is it that the oil industry does to us?  We met for dinner at his hotel in Jedburgh last night and got on famously. He is at least as much of a gadget man as I am and we spent half the evening discussing his new iPhone. But he is also a lot fitter and faster and I felt like an amateur in his presence.

Not so the only other genuine end-to-ender that I have met on the trip so far. Patrick also bore down on me yesterday, wearing Lycra shorts and trainers, carrying a huge pack with camping equipment and moving like a steam train. He too had the wild and staring eyes, and his nutter credentials are gold-embossed! He did LEJOG two years ago and is repeating the exercise, and doing it in half the time I am taking. He reserves nothing ahead of time. He just decides where he wants to stop, gets a room if it is available, and if it isn’t, he crawls into his sleeping bag in his tent and that’s it! He is an aging bachelor, so there are no dependents and he obviously just relishes bounding over the countryside. He did warn me that the problem with finishing LEJOG is that a return to normal life can lead to serious depression, but I do think I can see clear light between us!

We may all be nutters, but some of us have a head start!

First thing, a climb to the top of a 400m hill through boggy forest. Heart medicine!

And from the top, a look back at Catcleugh Reservoir through the mist

The wilderness beyond: "the loneliest place in England"

Alright then, if you insist, I won't

And so after 18 walking days, I finally leave the Pennine Way, on the Roman Road of Dere Street, heading for the West Highland Way. I felt quite emotional about it!

My entrance into Scotland was remarkably inauspicious. This is it, but no sign welcomes me! I flirted with the border for some miles before heading for Dere Street and irrevocably entering Scotland!

Dere Street looked at times like a lovely little path through the hills

Eventually, the bog turned to grassland as I descended.

Leaving the Pennine Way at this point is unusual, and there has to be a reason: LEJOG!!! After 61 days of not meeting any, today I met two! Richard and Patrick. Both had the wild staring eyes of the tribe! This is Patrick. He did it two years ago and is now doing it again. He leaps over the terrain like a demented goat!

Looking up at the Cheviot. If I had stayed on the Pennine Way, this would have been an objective

A Scottish Thistle in Scotland!

Coming down from Outer Space! The moors turn into green pasture

But there is a storm on the horizon! It caught me with two km to go and I was drenched!

The ruins of Jedburgh Abbey

The house where Mary Queen of Scots lived in Jedburgh