Friday May 20th- St. Cuthbert's Way Day 5

 Morebattle to Kirk Yetholm

Our last day, and one that which take us to just over halfway along St. Cuthbert's Way. We left Morebattle and followed the route around the countryside outside the town, crossed the river and began the climb up to Wideopen Hill.

The walk up to Wideopen Hill

This was the only real climb of the trip and it felt a little like a walk in The Lake District, with a lovely view of The Cheviots.

A Cheviot Panorama

It was quite something to reach the high point (368m) and the official halfway point between Melrose and Lindisfarne.

Halfway and the highest point

From Wideopen Hill, it was a pleasantly undulating walk down to Primsidemill.

The descent from Wideopen Hill

We had lunch beside a direction sign to, amongst other places, the somewhat oxymoronically named "Sourhope".
The Sourhope Oxymoron

From Primsidemill it was something of a slog along the road to reach Kirk Yetholm. It was good to go to The Border Hotel and drink a lot (to rehydrate, of course). It was great for Jacinta to see Kirk Yetholm as David had been going on about it as the end of The Pennine Way. David was really pleased to be back after nearly 53 years; it was sobering to see the sign in the pub describing the penalties for buying an underage person a drink as Neil S. and David had been bought a pint by Wainright and we'd both been significantly younger than 18! With luck, the Statute of Limitations will save us from prosecution.

Penalties for buying drinks for underage persons

The only disappointment for David was that the original sign at the end of The Pennine Way no longer existed, so there was no "then and now" picture to be had.

End of Pennine Way, 1969. L-R: John G, David, Eddie, Giles, Paul, Neil and Simon

All that remains in the general area where the sign was is a pole with a fitting for a dog-poo bin...

No sign of a sign in 2022

I was a little disorientated after so long- the above picture was taken at about 90⁰ to the '69 version- the house in the background now having an extension (Picture courtesy of Google Streetview).

House in the background of the '69 picture

We had a pleasant night in the Mill House B&B and then went on to Berwick-upon-tweed.

7 miles, 410m Ascent.

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