Route: The Cheviot, Northumberland

I could hardly contain my eagerness as I traced the barely-visible Hawsen Burn and then, once across the watershed between Scald and Broadhope Hills, I bounded downhill to the head of the Lambden Valley where carpets of wood sorrel covered the floor of the only plantation I was to pass through all day. The isolated farm of Goldscleugh, tucked beneath the steepsided Preston and Coldburn Hills, showed little signs of life except for the occasional grass-nibbling rabbit as I strode purposefully on to the start of my climb to higher ground.

The base of Bellyside Hill stands next to the point where the Bizzle and Bellyside Burns collide and with the impressive Bizzle Crags in sight I paused for an energy boosting banana before following a rough and rapidly rising track. Ahead, I could see the three stone- and heather-covered humps of Bellyside Hill together with the four distinct strands of the fledgling Goldscleugh Burn, all still holding pockets of late snow.

Then onto Bellyside Crag, at 770 metres above sea level the highest crag in the Cheviot Hills. I clambered to the top and, as I looked out from my rocky perch, I could think of nowhere else in Northumberland where there was a greater sense of the vastness of land and sky and a solitary walker’s total insignificance in the hugeness of time and space. I soaked up the solitude.

Pressing on, I drifted across the curved head of the deep cleft of the dramatic Bizzle, an Ice Age relict with steep cliffs and nearvertical screes. With its vast empty bowl and patches of snow it was one of the many highlights of the day but, with more still to come, I plodded on to Braydon Crag, the site of a B17 Flying Fortress crash in 1944.

From there I kept just below the peat line as I wound my way to the splendid stone men on rockshattered West Hill with sensational views into the Hen Hole and across the undulating border into Scotland. As I settled down for a leisurely lunch, the quietness of this airy spot was broken only by the sound of the College Burn tumbling down a series of cascades way below my outstretched legs.

I still had over 10 kilometres to go when I finally dragged myself to my feet and headed along the eastern rim of the Hen Hole to the stone-strewn edge of Auchope Cairn. Here I enjoyed one of the most extensive views in Northumberland before then following the paved Pennine Way over Cairn Hill to the highest point of my walk, Cheviot summit. But with nothing much to detain me in the view department I continued across the vast liquorice-black peat pool-littered plateau to begin my descent to Scald Hill. Once across the top, rather than stay with the popular ‘tourist’ path back to the valley, I headed over quie Blackseat Hill disturbed only by the echoing cries of a couple of vociferous curlews.

I could hardly contain my eagerness as I traced the barely-visible Hawsen Burn and then, once across the watershed between Scald and Broadhope Hills, I bounded downhill to the head of the Lambden Valley where carpets of wood sorrel covered the floor of the only plantation I was to pass through all day. The isolated farm of Goldscleugh, tucked beneath the steepsided Preston and Coldburn Hills, showed little signs of life except for the occasional grass-nibbling rabbit as I strode purposefully on to the start of my climb to higher ground.

The base of Bellyside Hill stands next to the point where the Bizzle and Bellyside Burns collide and with the impressive Bizzle Crags in sight I paused for an energy boosting banana before following a rough and rapidly rising track. Ahead, I could see the three stone- and heather-covered humps of Bellyside Hill together with the four distinct strands of the fledgling Goldscleugh Burn, all still holding pockets of late snow.

Then onto Bellyside Crag, at 770 metres above sea level the highest crag in the Cheviot Hills. I clambered to the top and, as I looked out from my rocky perch, I could think of nowhere else in Northumberland where there was a greater sense of the vastness of land and sky and a solitary walker’s total insignificance in the hugeness of time and space. I soaked up the solitude.

Pressing on, I drifted across the curved head of the deep cleft of the dramatic Bizzle, an Ice Age relict with steep cliffs and nearvertical screes. With its vast empty bowl and patches of snow it was one of the many highlights of the day but, with more still to come, I plodded on to Braydon Crag, the site of a B17 Flying Fortress crash in 1944.

From there I kept just below the peat line as I wound my way to the splendid stone men on rockshattered West Hill with sensational views into the Hen Hole and across the undulating border into Scotland. As I settled down for a leisurely lunch, the quietness of this airy spot was broken only by the sound of the College Burn tumbling down a series of cascades way below my outstretched legs.

I still had over 10 kilometres to go when I finally dragged myself to my feet and headed along the eastern rim of the Hen Hole to the stone-strewn edge of Auchope Cairn. Here I enjoyed one of the most extensive views in Northumberland before then following the paved Pennine Way over Cairn Hill to the highest point of my walk, Cheviot summit. But with nothing much to detain me in the view department I continued across the vast liquorice-black peat pool-littered plateau to begin my descent to Scald Hill. Once across the top, rather than stay with the popular ‘tourist’ path back to the valley, I headed over quie Blackseat Hill disturbed only by the echoing cries of a couple of vociferous curlews.