July

Bernie

Nenthead – Black Hill – Killhope Cross – Knowberry Hill – Nag’s Head – Dead Stones – Priorscale – Nenthead.

Windy, one light shower and one heavy shower. Gloves weather on top.

Bernie, Ashley, Michelle, Michael, Sandy, Ron, George B.

Carol - sore throat.

Evelyn - recovering from eye operation.

Comments

Bernie was wearing shorts and sunglasses (quote: “It is July”).

The first and last sections were on tracks and relatively easy. In between the terrain was boggy and tussocky – hard work. We met a group of coast to coast cyclists at the county boundary. One had a bloody knee, while another had a 9kg carbon fibre bike worth £6500.

We stood at the meeting of three different counties – Nothumberland, County Durham and Cumbria – marked by a small cairn. There were several stretches of fences, including some old fallen fenceposts providing useful navigational aids.

We didn't meet any other walkers apart from Bernie’s sister, nephew and dog, a blue border terrier called “Sky”. Michael and Michelle did a short route. Bernie lost control of her legs , fell in the mud and got a boot stuck in the mud. Sandy route marched us back from Nag’s Head.

We found several interesting stones. One in a wall looked like a grotesque face. A stone at Killhope Cross had the dates 17?5 – 1925 while another had 1865 on it . At Nag’s Head we found what appeared to be a milestone with the letters P and A and the number 10 on it.

Also found various artefacts: a button mistaken for a Roman coin, a kitchen knife with a blue handle, a halogen headlamp and two ellipsoidal magnets. There was a rattly corrugated sheet at the lunch spot.

The final section of the walk passed alongside a very steep shale ravine before going through old lead mine workings and a mine museum close to Nenthead, which had a large wheel. We took afternoon tea in the Miners Arms. There was a tortoiseshell cat sound asleep on a chair below a football shirt autographed by Wayne Rooney. The pub was also a stamping station for C2C.

Wildlife/Flora/Animals:

Birds: Meadow pipit, lapwing, grouse, curlew, skylark, ducks and seagulls

Mammals/others: Two frogs, rabbit and horses.

Plants/trees: Violets, wild iris, bog cotton, white and purple foxgloves, crowberries, forget-me-nots, thistles in flower, purple stocks.

Falcon’s Nest, North Gosforth. Very heavy thunderstorm on arrival.

Ornamental well

Stone head

Scenic view

Walkers in Northumberland

Group at cairn

Bogs

Fence

Stone in wall

Geese

Sandy with horse

Walkers

What is it?

Crossing moorland

Pause for breath

Lunch

Carving in stone

Mine