Day 17 Byreness to Windy Gyle

15 miles (Sunday)
The last section of my walk is split over two days, at a long long 26 miles over the Cheviot Hills, I have done what the majority of PW walkers do. Using Forest View in Byreness as our accommodation, they do a package over two days which includes a pickup at the halfway stage, then a return to the same place on the next day. Setting out just after 9:00, myself and good friend Lew, who made the long journey with his wife Jo to complete these last two stages with me, the pair of us soon made good work of ascending Byreness Hill. If theres one thing the Pennine Way does, it makes you work bloody hard at the start of each day.

Looking back down the steep ascent of Byreness Hill

We then made our way on an easy track to follow, and immediately we were stunned by the views of the Cheviot Hills. These hills have some of the finest views imaginable, all in front and to the sides of you as far as the eye can see, wonderful. They also have something that plenty of places on the PW have, bogs, bogs and more bogs, alright there are a reasonable number of stone flagged paths and duckboards to walk and keep your feet dry, but when there isn't you soon find about it. We took an alternative PW route that cuts out Chew Green, the site where there used to be Roman camps, this saved us a half mile. When we saw the descent then ascent of the other way, we made the right choice I'm certain.

                                                       Random photos of the Cheviot Hills

We took our lunch break in a mountain refuge hut just before the climb up onto Lamb Hill, then it was then a matter of taking in the views as we made our way to Windy Gyle, the halfway mark for us over the two days.

Lew at the mountain refuge hut

A sure thing that many lives have been saved by these bothy's

Russells cairn, top of Windy Gyle

From here it was approximately two miles down into the valley to wait for the pick up. It was a reasonably steep descent at times, but was ok underfoot and we had a good half an hour spare to wait for the pick up, so no rush. The trouble though, we came down today, tomorrow morning when we are brought back..........................