Scottish National Trail: day 0-1 Kirk Yetholm to Cessford. Conspiracy theories and defeat by cows

Day 0 Travel

The adventure begins! On the train at 10:43 and wave mum goodbye. Conscious how free of pain my feet are. It will be a long time till they return to this state again!

At Birmingham new street I heard the announcement that you could get a vaccine outside - thinking it was a 4 week not 6 weeks between the two I went there. I was struck by the kindness of another girl in the queue, a student at Exeter I chatted with- getting on the same train as me. They always say that small acts of kindness are so powerful and they were always right- I hope she stays in my mind.

On the train I managed to get a double seat to start then someone sat by me and I had to have my bag on my knee all cramped (not gonna lie was shifting my bag to try and give the lad next to me a hint to move somewhere else which he didn’t take). At Sheffield got a double at a table after that thank goodness so legs could come back to life - and after a bit the man opposite asked me if I was hiking. He’s a member of the long distance walkers association, the lady next to me- with her dog beside joined the conversation: another long distance hiker and … she walked the Scottish National trail two years ago! She’s off to do Hebridean way now - what I planned in a panic after America closed its borders in March last year. But the intensification of lock down stopped me ever doing it. It is so wonderful the people you meet when you go alone. Three interesting people in the first 4 hours- I wonder who else I will meet on the way.

Mum had bought me a 16-17 ticket by accident, the ticket man didn’t look though, thank goodness.

I had my first I’m an idiot moment when I realised my charger had an eu going into a shaver fitting not a uk one. Managed to get an adaptor for the shaver to uk in a giant b&m in Berwick (grey rainy and grim) so it’s now basically threee stacked adaptors (hopefully that’s fire safe! 🤔

Got on my second bus in Kelso. A very friendly bus! (Bus driver didn’t even charge me- couldnt be bothered to change my £10 note) The other passenger welcomed we and was excited I was going to her village- she seemed v lovely - she’d walked long distances as well when young - but a few minutes in, after mentioning science, then biology, then birds flying, we got to the real topic: (it’s so funny thinking about this- I was glad for my mask otherwise couldn’t keep a straight face!) turns out I she’s a very dedicated conspiracy theorist, determined to bring me to her point of view. Trying to bring me over with all her evidence on why 3G 4g and microwaves are killing the planet (don’t say she’s wrong on this - I don’t know better but I know she’s not right with her evidence!) and how she senses when there’s WiFi around and how she couldn’t play her instruments after touching a tablet. I did try to say that for me the known devastation due to biodiversity loss (We did both agree that loss of animals in a habitat threw of the ‘balance’ and was a significant problem :) ),land use changes, and carbon emissions was much more important than the unknown side effects of modern technology (and how it didn’t seem that my generation were really that impacted by growing up with it all - I know we’re strange but I’m pretty sure our cells are alright).….and I did try to mention that the most significant contribution of radiation comes from space and rocks (🥳) and has always happened …. But NO all the studies on the EMF and The Microwaves and the Radiation have had their funding taken away just as they got into trials … isn’t that SUSPICIOUS, and our lovely ladies own personal experience of feeling the microwaves is proper scientific EVIDENCE. And the TREES … they’re shorter… because their immune systems are dying (do trees have immune systems??? Would like to know? Don’t believe they do but if not what do they have?) - I didn’t want to point out that plants have actually been shown to grow better under pylons 🤫. She got off in Yetholm (I nearly did but the bus driver saved me by reversing back for me) - bus driver described her as ‘a lovely lady who means well, If a little eccentric’. I was just giggling to myself all the way to the hostel - such a strange experience! I can only admire her resolute determination to make the facts fit the conspiracy - good luck to any amazing people heading to the COP summit - might get to meet her with her sign about The Microwaves.

It’s weird though, to know that you know more about something and that one view is not correct when another is, yet to know that if you knew less you wouldn’t be able to tell what was right and what was wrong: without the big broad scientific picture of the world I would be very lost in tales- and yet not knowing much really, I wonder what ideas I am still lost in that I believe simply because they’re is no reason, with the evidence I know, not to believe them.

The hostel is super nice little building, when I arrived met two people just finished the pennine way. I have a little room with a bunk and the kitchen is fabulous and huge. I bought some dinner in b&m so had a beautiful meal of microwaved (I believe I’m still okay😂) pilau rice topped with sweet chilli sauce…. Mmm nutrition

So that’s 6 amazing people met already- at 9 hrs in!

Day 1

Kirk Yetholm to cessford

I lie in for a bit and leave the hostel for breakfast at the borders hotel- I want a slow morning as it’s a short day. I feel on the edge, nervous, tense. Looking at the big breakfast makes me feel sick, as if my stomach has shrunk. I know in a few weeks I will Hoover food like this, but this morning I can barely eat. The hotel was full of wedding guests from yesterday, and the stuff scrubbed into the carpet in the bathroom suggested they’d had a good party last night (though must be a hard job for the hotel staff, no wonder they looked tired). Then on my way

. I walk to the border. I took the compulsory selfies with the England and Scotland road signs. At least I can claim 4km extra on the Scotnatrail. Saw my first Scottish rapberries (my god they are delicious! A bowl of those for breakfast and I wouldn’t have struggled to eat!). The rose hips are already forming and the thistles are in full purple splendour. There are some exposed rock faces on the hillsides. I’d like to get up close and inspect, my guess is granite. Although they look sort of columnar- or maybe virticlr cleavage. This must be the Cheviots - I can probably look it up.

The weather is grey and breezy but perfect walking weather. St Cuthbet’s way brings me up onto a ridge. The steep ascents to summits makes me I feel like I’m on the first half of the South Downs way again - climbing one of the Beacon Hills in my rain coat (that really was a walk of two half’s! Horrible rain to crazy beautiful sun). Although they’ll be no chalk to be had here.

Turning a circle from the top, the view is magnificent - still feels like an English view, although that’s fair as probably looking over England. But the dappled light that scatters on the fields, and the fields, like a patchwork rug thrown in a jumble and not yet flattened so that the fields - yellow brown and green - roll about, embroidered with small woods and farms. To the south the hills are open moorland - like those of mid wales.

Some of the rocks are exposed as outcrop up here. Whatever it is I feel I can happily say it is NOT pillow basalt. (Cracks are v rectangular)

I stop for lunch up there. A nasty sandwich made of the sort of gf bread that turns to paste as you eat it. But A nice apple. A lot of v long breaks . And I feel very sore already, in my hip and soles, and tired.I still have a long way to go because I’m going so slowly but I don’t want to get to my camp spot too early.

On ‘Wideopen Hill’ (highest point on St Cuthberts way) The wildflowers out here jewel the landscape: Bunche of pinkish white one on short stem dotted with bell shaped purple flowers that shake in the breeze. White Clover flowers and pale feathery grasses. Yellow bursts of dandelion. Bumble Bees gathering the netctor of thistles

Oh gosh I love these walk so much. Passing a beech tree on the road makes me dream again of the magnificent beech woods of the Cotswold way; before, I had never known anything like it- the shades of brown the endless rustle the way their crowns shared the light, and the deep channels that paths took, dug out by centuries of walkers - that makes me think of Izzy & the cover of Underland. Nothing like that here. I think of Hadrian’s wall and That View comes sticking into my mind: the wall wiggling away into the distance, with sheer cliffs to the left defening the long lines of hills that run parallel to the right. Glyndwrs way is forestry and sheep fields and grey raining skies. But The South Downs, that is openness. Expanse. Sky, and birds and heat and sun. And luminous white paths wheeling over the downs, high up above the flat world below.

The walks were brutal and tough - I don’t romanticise it so much that the struggle has left my mind. But the memories, they are like dreams, or photographs I’ve seen. As if I never really did walk those miles. But the people I met along the way they were very real, the unasked for unimagined kindness of the magical people I have met. I know that many don’t like the idea of walking alone and their fear is of the strangers they might meet. But the people you meet out here, when you go alone, I don’t think I have ever experienced the same in any other way of life. Even living in Cambridge where their are so many other people around. The people who give up their time to share kindness with you - I think often of the wonderful lady in Newton Arlosh, the evening after my ‘experience’ of Skinburbess marshes, or the eccentric walkers I have met - who have lived so much in their lives and share their knowledge and tails and good wishes.In the south it is a bit different, as walkers are rare and campers are normally rowdy holiday makers so people are not as open as they were on Hadrian’s wall or up here - how many lovely chats have I already had today with day walkers and farmers?

When I arrive in Morebattle a sign points to a cafe in a church- St Aidans . This marvellous place is half renovation work (unsure why there is about inside the church!), and half beautiful tables and decoration: bunting and tapestries and beautiful coloured patchwork hangings decorated with poems. They are restoring the stained glass. It is the sort of space that asks for quiet. Ordering tea amd (gluten free!) cake feels too loud, desturbing the peace.

The Christian (Presbyterian) history of this village is expanded on by a lovely information sign. Morebattle from mere-botl, meaning lake dwelling once sat beside a large lake that disappeared by the 18th century.

I spend a while exploring - killing time (not far to go and not yet 4pm!) The village seems to have an amazing community, what with the lovely cafe, a hotel/pub an active village hall, community shop, community gardens, a pretty school and Morebattle Games and Morebattle institutetr

The village church walls are painted with scripture in large beautiful font. It is simple but elegant - what I imagine early Protestant churches to have looked like, though I rarely have seen passages on the walls of CofE churches. It is brilliant being able to visit churches agiain. Whatever your beliefs, the role of churches in Britain’s community history is esssenyial to the story. The upheavals and religious tensions that have shaken the country, and the local narratives of the people who came every week through the centuries.

- they are the buildings in which those who have tilled this land back into forgotten years found sanctuary from hard lives, And the surprising beauty of so many small village churches shows the importance they hold.

The stone of the Morebattle church is a beautiful deep red sandstone with strong bedding - is this evidence of the local geology? I think maybe not - or at least not for the hills I was on- I suppose a church was worth transporting stone for. On some stones you can even see changes in bedding direction: cross bedded sandstones then: dunes, the red suggesting an arid environment where hematite coating can build on the grains … Permian maybe? When British was near the equator and sub aerial? although this could be wrong as the sand grains don’t seem particularly rounded under my compass ‘ magnifying lens.

The village also has delightful street names : teapot bank, thimble row

I’ve felt fond of st cuthberts way ever since I did a tiny bit of it in Hadrian’s w all - a beautiful day, passing a wonderful isolated church - and today has furthered my feeling of how pleasant it is. One, however, that I think I will keep until I’m older.

I’m in no way religious or superstitious- other than asthetixc appreciation of which I have a lot. But when your hiking such realities go out the window. (I think of Robert macfarlane at the ruins of Cham to bury ring). I will happily believe my rescues in precarious situations are blessings, and maybe there are no ghosts, but on the trail storms become sentient, animals intelligent, huge beasts roam, and tree spirits return to the woods, so I was proper freaked out when I thought I heard someone call hello (definitely must have been a sheep) while exploring the ruins of cessford castle.

They are proper amazing, with hidden entrances and levels and sections and dark rooms. I’m too much of a coward to camp inside the ruins - this is my first ever wild camp after all but this is a brilliant place for it. One of the defensive outer walls provides good shelter from the road so no one will know I’m here I less then come in the grounds.

I stow my bag and go to collect water. Water filtering is MUCH harder than I expected. It takes 40 minutes with the walk there and back. The problem was I couldn’t easily fill up the dirty water bag. Though I finally managed to get 2 littered I struggle to believe that it I not light green. I will DEFINITLY be adding purifying tablets.

I decided to move on and not camp here over something. packed and walked further along the track found a nice field and started cooking but a fe minutes in a LOT of cows arrived. Their curiosity won the stand off and I retreated to the other side of the track - stuff covered in cow slober. The late sun here streams over me with warmth. Despite my ongoing wild camping anxiety this really is lovely.

It was quite A thrill walking on as the sunset after dinner- my tents normally up by 5! On the horizon the setting sun silhouetted teeted a tower just like Tyndale’s monument in orange with two round hills behind it in light grey. (Main photo)

Around 9pm I found a wonderful discrete camping spot in a long thin for plantation. Tucked in the woods like this feels so magical, take away the track and fields nearby and I couldn’t imagine anything more ‘wild camping’

I get to use my trowel for the first time to😂

And birds chirp as the sun sets and I head for bed.

D