Weather: Fine, breezy.
Distance:
22 km (13.7 miles) Total Distance: 3166 miles
Another momentous day – going south towards home.
I left the youth hostel and drove on the pretty
quiet roads to Gretna, parked in a suburban street and headed to the outskirts
of the town stopping to take some pictures of the river which marked to
border.
I was expecting more wedding
chapels etc as that’s what I associate with Getrna but it was more just an
ordinary town. The next section was none
too pleasant, along the main A74 England to Scotland road. There were no
obvious footpaths in the fields or on the map so I was forced to stick to the
main road.
I suppose I should be thankful
that it had not been made into a motorway and then my path would have been
blocked all together. I thought that
about half way along I would be able to get off the A74 and use a farm track
that ran parallel to the main road but it was far from obvious whether this was
a private road or not so I was forced to stick to the A74 itself.
I could see the Metal Bridge Inn in the
distance and was relived to get off the road, around the pub and onto a
footpath, over a very new footbridge over the main railway line, another relief, and then onto a track. Here I came very
close to a baby deer – such a contrast to a few minutes earlier when I was on a
very busy main road.
I hit some minor roads and had a choice to make of whether
to head north towards the estuary and explore whether I could get around the
marsh on what looked like a sea defence or head south and cut off the
corner. I chose the former and having
got to the estuary decided to go north even though it was pretty ambiguous
whether it was any sort of right of way or not.
Initially the going was not too bad but after a couple of miles the
going got much harder and the sea defences had evidently recently been
reinforced without any intention of catering for walkers so it was like walking
over a building site. On the southern
side of the estuary things were not much better even though according to the
map I was now on a footpath. I got to a
large private estate and had to walk along the road as the footpath along the
marsh was non existent. There were
however some mini sandstone like cliffs to look at.
From Rockville all the way to Carlisle I walked on the banks
of the River Eden. This was easier than
it sounds and the one point I was
following a not very well used path, and found myself below a fair sized cliff
(50 add feet) and the swollen River Eden down a drop to my right and the
footpath in a very bad condition. The
fact that a cliff had appeared on my left and going back would have made quite
a detour made me determined to press on but it was pretty dangerous!
The other aspect of the walk was the fact that
I hardly met anyone at all. At one stage
I met a grandfather evidently out for a walk with his grandson teaching him all
about the surrounding countryside – a great sight but that was the only
conversation I had all day.
The twists
and turns in the river had made this a deceivingly long walk and I was
wondering where I was going to cross the river when I came across an old bridge
over the river evidently no longer used.
I assumed from its state that it would be all fenced off but I saw a
person walking across it. I walked up
from the footpath at river level to the top of the bridge and looked
across. It didn’t look all that
safe! The walls on the side had been
pushed into the river below by local vandals so all the remained was the
platform high above the river. I walked
across wondering whether I was doing the right thing. It was not a right of
way but still pretty well used by those brave enough to try.
On the other side I headed north out of Carlisle for a while
till I came to a point to stop for the day.
The riverbank was still in a slippery condition and the fear of landing
in the swollen river remained. After
about a mile I ended the walk for the day, headed inland though an industrial
estate and ended up walking the main road into Carlisle and catching a bus back
to Gretna.
The contrast between the
quite middle part of the day and the noisy start was striking.
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