Let the sun shine

Walk five is our half-way point. Time to get immersed in the festival – so we have booked into a B + B for a couple of nights. A full English with locally sourced ingredients , including Rothbury prize-winning sausage and Maggie’s home-made bread, awaits us tomorrow morning. But first we have to get provisioned to tackle Simonside.

Our first disappointment of the week – Rothbury is very quiet on Wednesday afternoon – so we have to stock up at the Co-op. Good though the Co-op is, our tastebuds were anticipating a Rothbury Bakery pie. The substitute Melton Mowbray pie and pre-packed sarnie in the car park at Simonside did not have that local touch we had hoped for.

A minibus takes us on a very short ride to Lordenshaws car park. No time today to examine the cup and ring markings and the hill-fort, as we start on the ascent to Beacon Crag. On the way, we take a diversion through the heather to visit the Beacon Solar Observatory. This is situated 318 metres above sea level on a wide flat platform, with commanding views from the Cheviots past Rothbury and on to the coast at Tynemouth.

In the middle of the platform is a large standing stone, containing a hole 1.67 metres long which aligns with the setting sun over Yanspeth Law, 22km away in the Cheviots on the summer solstice. A shaft of light from the sunrise at Tynemouth, 44km way, almost but not quite shines to the end of the hole on the winter solstice. The existence of this solar observatory lends credence to the idea that Simonside is some sort of sacred mountain.

We rejoin the path and our walk leader, Jon, explains how this recently laid surface was constructed by National Park rangers and volunteers to make a safe path which counters the natural and man-made erosion that was scarring the hillside. We admire the craftsmanship and wonder at the man-hours that have gone into this work.

As we ascend to Dove Crag the 360 degree views become even more wonderful. There is a perfect clear view of the sunlight glinting on the coast.

We next meet up with a solitary feral goat who has been living at the top of Simonside for 3 or 4 years now. How did he get here? And who puts the lights on the Christmas tree at this remote spot every year? I suspect it is something to do with the Duegar.

We have been climbing for some time now and face a hairy descent scrambling down the hillside. Doug, one of the volunteer back-markers, keeps us calm and shows us how to treat it as if it were a staircase. We make it safely to the bottom – but our knees are beginning to protest.

Back on the easier slope towards the forest we are able to watch a deer bobbing all the way up the hillside from near where we had started the walk – its coat red in the last of the evening sunlight. It reaches cover, as we do the same – heading down through the woods back to our cars.

Pedometer: 7,991 (cumulative 50,919)