Six o’clock on a warm summer’s night saw an intrepid group assembling outside the National Park Centre to take part in the inaugural walk of the first Rothbury Walking Festival. Our leader Jon, from Shepherd’s Walks, welcomed us and told us how the festival had come about. He was genuinely excited at the prospect of the week ahead – with over 300 bookings already, and more still coming in.
Tonight’s walk was the Rothbury Carriageway – a gentle introduction to the festival.
A sharp ascent out of the village up Gravelly Bank soon had us wondering about that word “gentle”. Jon promised us that most of the pain would be at the start, and the developing views were adequate compensation for the pull on my under-performing thigh-muscles.
We took a few breath breaks as Jon described the development of Rothbury and the latest additions to its townscape, and then gave us a run through of the shepherd’s year as we stopped at Gimmerknowe (roughly translated, if I was listening properly, as the lambing hill).
The paths so far had been tarmac or firm surfaces. Time to head up the hill on rougher, but still manageable terrain, to join the carriageway. We were now in Lord Armstrong’s country – how would Rothbury have developed without Lord A? The carriageway is a circular high-level route which Armstrong constructed so that his guests at Cragside could drive around (no, not in their 4 by 4s) and view the surrounding landscape.
And what a landscape! Our vantage point gave a preview of the walks for the coming week – Alwinton, the Cheviots, Simonside – all were set out in a wonderful panorama.
At this point the Grey Bombshell said why don’t you take a set of 360 degree pictures with your fancy new camera? I had to admit that I had not got far enough in the user manual to even know where to start. In fact I was just discovering the trick of turning my camera back on after the handy power-saving thingy insisted on turning it off.
The carriageway was a comfortable walk. It should be – the Queen uses the same red locally-quarried stone out front at her place in London.
High above Rothbury we stopped for the final viewpoint – according to Jon, the best view of the village – and who could disagree?
We then scrambled down Blaeberry Hill, where the contrasting greens of the dark heather, the fresh emerging bracken and the low-lying blaeberries took our minds off the toll extracted from our wobbling knee joints. And then, suddenly, we were back in the centre of Rothbury – a real surprise as we had been in the hills only ten minutes earlier.
Pedometer: 6719 steps
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