LEJOG blog

Day 70 of the End to End was another day in which we’d drawn a line on the map and walked along and then found all sorts of surprises along the way.
It began at Auldgirth Inn and the first thing was to cross the Nith by the Auldgirth Bridge. Now an elaborate footbridge, it used to be the road bridge.

The roadside verges continued to provide a lot of interesting sights. Foxgloves are looking majestic at the moment but there’s much more. Nettles grow close together with dock which is handy is you should inadvertently stumble into the former. The nettles are a source of life for many other species, including some colourful fungal rust and other creatures.
There were many bees out today, and that was good news for the scores of apiaries near Cleuch House. I bought some Scottish blossom honey, a summer honey made by the bees in the summer meadows I’m currently walking through.

Bob met me and we stopped for lunch on a wall near Porterstown farm. We then walked into Keir Mill. This small village was the home of Kirkpatrick Macmillan who invented the bicycle. His tombstone in the village cemetery reveals a family story that was common in this area in the 19th century with the early death of his wife and several children. Examination of other adjacent gravestones tell much the same story. The local school teacher lost two children in infancy and three sons to the wars of the early 20th century, for example.

The bridge at the end of the village provided a spot to converse with some cyclists. The local cycle route here is named in memory of Kirkpatrick Macmillan.
I rejoined the road and walked the last few miles to the Drumlanrig eastate in Bob’s company.

From Psalm 119

Your words taste so sweet; sweeter than honey in my mouth!

The bees are very busy and the meadows and verges are alive with their buzzing.
Each flower makes an inviting place for a bee: foxglove and dog rose, each one a cup for a bee to drink from.
The golden nectar that the bees produce is a special bounty, replaying the taste of summer on our lips.
It’s no wonder that ancient people likened this liquor to God’s words.

May God grant us a quiet night and a peaceful end

JAL 23.96.2019
Day 70 of the End to End from Auldgirth Inn to Drumlanrig Castle

Day 69 of the End to End, we left Dumfries and caught up with the place where we left the route on Thursday, which was near Greenbogue farm.
It was a warm, sunny day and even walking was thirsty work. It was some weeks since we last had this kind of weather on LEJOG. The first section was to Kirkton, which had a large (closed) church. Church of Scotland churches seem less likely to be open than Parish churches in England. Just outside the village, the War Memorial is set on a hill and commands a good view.

With the whole walk so far along the road I was struggling for distractions. There were a few buzzards about, including one feasting on a pigeon in a field by the road. Another was calling to it from the trees.
The next lay-by revealed the hungrier caterpillars of the walk so far making a meal of the local nettles. Although still tiny, you can just see the body hairs developing on some of them. This photo is especially for hungry caterpillar fans like Jenny and Joseph.

Bob met me and we had lunch at the Dalswinton chapel. This metal chapel was erected in 1881 and is painted red.

Behind the chapel is a Journey Garden, designed as a place to remember the lives of those who have worked at Dalswinton. In the centre of the garden there is a stone labyrinth.

A path through the wood led out to Dalswinton village. With only a couple of miles left, we were soon at Auldgirth Inn, the end of today’s walk, for a cool drink.
We then drove to Sanquhar to our accommodation for the week ahead at Lochside, not far from the Southern Upland Way.

From the Labyrinth at Dalswinton

Look where you have been,
View where you are at,
Seek where you want to be

God grant a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 22.06.2019
Day 69 of the End to End from Greenbogue farm to Auldgirth Inn.

We decided that as I’m currently two days ahead of schedule it would be a good idea to have a day off at Whithorn. Moving on from Hoddom Castle, our first stop was Kelhead Water, originally an 18th century Quarry now a lovely place to see wild flowers: ragged robin, water lillies, irises and especially orchids.

We then rejoined the A75 to go West towards Whithorn. We took our time to visit the Priory and adjacent museums, including a reconstructed iron age round house. This is based on the finds of a nearby excavation of a house dated to 450BC. The early Christian stone crosses from 400 to 1100AD are also fascinating.

After lunch in Whithorn we drove to the car park for Ninians cave, on the coast SW of Whithorn. The walk to the cave through a beautiful strip of woodland emerged onto a stony beach with the cave at one end. Again the wild flowers were a feast. 

The stones and surf also made lovely patterns. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day, which I finished off with a bit of ice cream at Carsluith castle on the way back to Dumfries.

For one night we’re at the Townhouse Hotel, helpfully near the Noblehill fish and chip shop.

From Psalm 8

When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
What is humanity that you are mindful of them,
Human beings that you care for them?

We can go back centuries,
Your story recalled in rocks and stones
And in long buried remains from the past.
I marvel at your continued care.
Standing on the shore, close to Ninian’s cave, the sea and land and sky
Make a majestic sight.
I am thankful.

God grant a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 21.06.2019
Midsummer’s day, not walking LEJOG.

Some walking days are busier than others. Today was Day 68 of the End to End and it was one of the less busy ones. It started near Ruthwell (without a) Station. The main features of the road ahead were it was mostly straight with tall foliage on the verges. This meant that the well placed milestones were largely obscured. From time to time there would be a short section of footway like at Mouswald between the church and school. Presumably once a frequently used route, the church is currently up for sale.

A lot of the fields are being cut for hay and it is a busy time. Some cut fields are well shorn. Other fields not yet cut still have a variety of grass and flowers.
The half way point today was Drummuir Farm ice cream parlour, just in time for 11s. It seemed churlish to try just one flavour so I had three. It seems there is an Ice Cream Trail in Scotland. I’ll report on any that are in our route, of course.

The next place to note was Collin. I have been trying to think of something witty to say about it but have so far failed to come up with anything. There’s a pedestrian tunnel under the A75 which is helpful. The post office operates from the Village Hall 2 lunchtimes a week and we were just in time to get some stamps.
The last 2 miles were going well until Bob joined me and invited a short, heavy shower. The road was soon steaming when the sun came out again.
Tonight is our last night at Hoddom Castle camp site which has been excellent. Due to the number of miles in hand, tomorrow is a non walking day for a side visit to Whithorn.
Also, in case you hadn’t heard, at 3am, Mel Nicholls smashed the Handcycle LEJOG record getting to John O’Groats in 6 days, 22 hours and 18 minutes. Brilliant!
I’m some days behind her.

From Psalm 72

May God be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth.

We see the rain as it approaches from the coast:
Grey clouds bubble up, streaks fall like curtains, a hard shower peppers the road.
Then, when the sun comes out, steam rises like a hot spring, or the surface of a bath.
This, thankfully, is water.

God grant us a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 20.06.2019
Day 68 of the End to End, Ruthwell Station to near Greenbogue farm.

There was a lot to fit into Day 67 of the End to End, that started at a junction on the B724 near Milnfield. Like yesterday there was a bit of busy road walking to start with but it didn’t get to me as much as yesterday. Maybe I had got a bit more used to it. You certainly have to keep your wits about you. Maybe it was finding a side route to Powfoot which though longer was much quieter. It certainly helped.
Part of the Sustrans network, this was a cycle route and I’ve used lots of them. This one ran alongside the Solway Firth and had beautiful views. Attempts to develop Powfoot as a leisure and health centre at the turn of the 19th century led to the construction of a bathing pool that can still be seen today.

The Powfoot hotel was a lovely place for a cool drink. This was the hottest days walk in a while. My greatest disappointment was the lack of Natterjacks, despite signs to look out for them. Bob joined me for a picnic as the cycle route came back to the road.

That road was long and straight and was lined with foxgloves, dog roses and comfrey, all showing a great range of colour variation.
It took us to the Ruthwell savings bank museum, which is definitely worth a visit. Site of the first savings bank in Britain, it is part of the history of the Trustee Savings Bank which now owns the building.
The bank was started by Henry Duncan, a local minister. It was the first bank in which women could have account of their own and control it themselves. Children too could open an account for 6d. With the money generated from the savings bank the community was able to open a school and hire a teacher all at a time when working class people lacked access to savings banks.

Henry Duncan didn’t stop at the savings bank. His efforts to describe the fossilised footprints of a quadruped found in local sandstone culminated in have an extinct giant tortoise named after him. He was Moderator of the Church of Scotland in due course and then active in the Disruption which lead to the founding of the Free Presbyterian Church in 1842.
However it is the preservation of the Ruthwell cross that I’d primarily come to see. This piece of Anglo-Saxon art still stands in Ruthwell church, next on my itinerary and just up the road.

Thought to have been one of a line of pilgrim crosses from Whithorn to Lindisfarne the cross has survived some hard times. Its dismemberment in the 17th century came at the decree of the Church of Scotland. However, today it once again stands in a Church of Scotland church due to the efforts of Henry Duncan.
It is originally thought to have been carved by Italian sculpters and the carvings still show a lot of detail. Most interesting is a panel said to show Mary and Martha, not a pair I’ve seen before on stone crosses of this age. Duncan was unable to find the original cross piece and had another carved to replace it.

Behind the cross, three stained glass windows depict the Northern Saints: Aidan, Cuthbert and Hilda.

From Ruthwell it was not far to the end of today’s walk at Ruthwell Station, although of course it no longer has one. Luckily Drummuir Farm does now make ice cream and we stopped for a quick one and a bit more research into the Ice Creams of Britain.

From Mark 15

And they crucified him

Here it stands, after all this time,
Silently telling the story,
And central to it all,
Carved in stone and irrefutable:
He was crucified.
When I survey this wondrous cross…

God grant me a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 19.06.2019
Day 67 of the End to End from Milnfield on the B724 to Ruthwell Station

Day 66 of the End to End started at Rigg and went along to Eastrigg. It was an unpleasant busy road and I found myself walking quicker to get it over. My first mile in 17 minutes may be the quickest of the walk so far.
At Eastrigg I stopped at the Devil’s Porridge Museum, said to be the best tourist attraction in Dumfries and Galloway. In case you didn’t know it’s a different sort of Porridge. Devil’s Porridge was the name given to the noxious mixture that was used to make munitions fuses in WW1. The massive factories at Gretna and Eastrigg were set up to make it in 1915. Women came from all over the North of England and South Scotland to work there at what was quite a dangerous place at the time.
They required accommodation and two towns were built to house them: Eastrigg with its Commonwealth Street names, and the part of Gretna that I walked through yesterday afternoon.

The museum also charts the end of the factory once the war was over, and then how the area came to be involved in WW2 and in the development of nuclear weapons using the plutonium from the nearby nuclear power plant. It’s an interesting place. The Munition sites are still visible on the ordinance survey maps were are using for the walk, stretching from here to Longtown in Cumbria.
We had our lunch in the museum cafe. No Porridge. The conditions for the second half of the days walk were improved by the fact there was a footway along the road most of the way. I arrived in Annan and met Bob at the supermarket. We walked down the main street but had to do without ice cream as all the ice cream machines seemed to be out of order. I had a strawberry tart instead and ate it under the gaze of the statue of Robert the Bruce on the Town Hall.

The last section of the walk today was on the Annandale Way along the river Annan. The river has been running high and some fields still had evidence of small local flooded sections. Bob met me at a wood yard at the junction with the road I will take tomorrow.

An unmetrical version of Psalm 18

God is my rock, rock, rock
And my castle.
God us my strength, strength, strength
I trust God:
My body armour and the source of life in me,
God is my high tower.

There are many high towers in the local landscape which were used for defense.
They crop up in Celtic spirituality as an image of the strong presence of God, as defender and refuge.

God defend us from all trials and troubles this night,
Grant us a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 18.06.2019
Day 66 of the End to End, Rigg to near Milnfield.

Day 65 of the End to End was an epic day. I made sure it got off to the right start by putting on my blue walking trousers. These are the same trousers I wore on the day Hannah walked into Scotland 7 years ago.
We were using her route to Gretna. Well in truth, non motorway traffic all has to use the same road, which runs alongside the M6. Indeed this was the closest I’d walked to the M6 in all the days I’ve followed the M6 corridor. Sometimes there was only a hole in the fence between me and the motorway.

This funnel into Scotland has one great effect: it concentrates the End to Enders into a narrow stream. Today I saw 3 other groups of End to Enders, all cyclists, my highest tally so far.

First there was Tim and Alan, Lejoggers from North Wales. Then there was Mel Nicholls and her team. This terrific paralympic athlete began a world record attempt a few days ago to Handcycle LEJOG in 9 days. Read about it here

https://melnicholls.co.uk/

Follow her @Dolly2racer
They passed me just before Metal Bridge, where we stopped for lunch, as we did the last time we came this way in 2012.

There was quite a cross wind on the next section and warnings for cyclists.

The third team of End to Enders were husband and wife cyclists, Colin and Sandra. Colin is 80 and they are going JOGLE. I met them just before Gretna as they headed for Carlisle.

Then it was celebration time at the border and a photo of me wearing the same trousers at the Welcome to Scotland sign.

There was time for ice cream and a bit of shopping at the Gretna outlet before I left Hannah’s 2012 route to go West towards Annan, getting to Rigg by day’s end.
Then a side visit to Bruce’s Cave on the way back to our campsite. By a small miracle it even had a resident spider. A sign? Maybe: persistence pays off when you are doing the End to End.

From 1 Thessalonians 5
Be happy! Pray at all times. Give thanks in all circumstances. Line up with God!

Not every End to End is a record,
But each one is a significant personal effort.
I pray tonight for
Tim and Alan, Colin and Sandra, and Mel Nicholls and her team, and all those other End to Enders I’ve not met yet.

God grant us all a quiet night and a peaceful end

JAL 17.06.3019
Harker Bridge to Rigg via Gretna.
PS thanks for all encouraging messages and comments: much appreciated.

In 2017 I walked from East to West, Newcastle to Carlisle, along the Hadrian’s Wall Path. Today my North to South route would cross that East to West route.
I began at the post box at Burthwaite. Some twitter followers asked about the Parish Council: St Cuthbert Without. Without what you wonder?
Well I don’t know, but Bede reported that Cuthbert’s followers had carried his body in his coffin around the North of England for 6 years before setting it down at Durham.
The morning’s walk was fine with no rain and I was not so encumbered. I was soon walking into Carlisle via Upperby, where they are building Story Homes. Maybe they are made of straw, wood or bricks depending on which little pig you choose.

‘I’ll huff and I’ll blow your house down’

In Carlisle city centre we stopped for ice cream before visiting the Cathedral. My South to North walk was crossing over my East to West one, as I visited the cathedral in 2017 when I was on the Hadrian’s Wall Path. We walked past the Carlisle City Hostel where we stayed and also Carlisle castle. At Britts Park I was briefly on the HWP again and crossed the river Eden to the point where the line of the Vallum crossed the A7. 

I was definitely heading North.

I walked into Hobby Craft to top up on scrapbook supplies (there are a series of scrapbooks that also illustrate the End to End) and then onto the final section of road around Kingstown retail park. This used to be an airfield.
Bob met me and we agreed to try a short section of disused railway path to get off the road for a bit. It wasn’t that long, and two other short bits of path one of which ended in a scramble up a bank, took me to Harper Bridge, over the M6, today’s end point.

River Eden at Carlisle 

From Psalm 46

There is a river and its streams make God’s city a glad place, the holy place where God is living.
God is right there in the centre of that place and shall not be moved but shall continually come to help that city all of the time.

God loves cities.
God wants them to thrive and be places of abundant life.
May the city constantly remember God and directed in God’s way be a fruitful place for all people.

God grant a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 16.06.2019
Day 64 of the End to End, Burthwaite to Harper Bridge via Carlisle.

After a gap of a week in which there has been a lot of rain, we took up the End to End again today. It was Day 63 and we were once again in Cumbria in the M6 corridor.
I started at the Cottage Wood Centre, a project of the Methodist Church where I spoke to one of the project workers. She told me the congregation had been down to 4 people before the project started and it’s now a thriving space for people of all ages.

The road went straight on and as a result the traffic goes rather fast much to the detriment of 3 hedgehogs. A notice suggested red squirrels deserved consideration. Unfortunately I didn’t see any. But I did see some donkeys and sheep, and All Saints Church, Calthwaite.

By lunchtime we’d made it to Southwaite services and so walked in through the back gate. It’s beginning to look a bit worn but the jam donuts were as good as ever.
The grass verges were a riot of foxgloves, buttercups, vetch and red campion alongside many different grasses. The season was certainly marching on.

A tiny few spots of rain after lunch but hardly worth putting my hood up for. The road carried straight on and I was soon striding into Burthwaite where the post box looked very familiar. Red of course, but also the same one Hannah had been photographed at in 2012.

From Proverbs 3

God will make your paths straight.

May we walk in God’s paths.
And may God grant us a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 15.06.2019
Day 63 of the End to End, Brackenburgh to Braithwaite, Cumbria.

Here in Derbyshire in the between days, it’s still wet. There’s a lot of fake news out there too. Some say there’s panic buying of gopher wood and animals have been seen queuing in pairs on the hard shoulder of the M1. Others say climate is being adversely affected by human activity but who could believe that?

I’ve been out and walked through some wet meadows. Wet grass tickling my legs, I’ve seen buttercups, vetch and clover all bowed down with jewel-like rain drops. I’ve seen foxgloves dripping and dog roses like tiny pools.

I’ve got wet. I slipped on a stile and have a magnificent bruise to show for it. I’ve been experiencing re-entry. This is the first training event I’ve conducted in six months. I can’t wait to get back to walking at the end of the week.

From Psalm 56

I have made vows to you, God;
I will present my thanks to you.
For you have delivered me from death
And kept my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before you in the light of life.

The subtle grey light of a drizzly day,
The bright clear light of a blue sky day
The soft light of the evening star:
Each one gives us light and shows us a path.
You have delivered me to a place of flourishing.
You have shown me the grave and proved it empty.
What more can I do than praise you, for all of this is marvellous.

God grant a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 12.06.2019
At The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, while not walking the End to End.