16 miles/26 km

Total miles: 237 miles/382 km

We had a great nights stay in the Cheviot Hotel last night which was probably one of the best hotels we’d stayed at on the Pennine Way. Bellingham is the last town on the trail before reaching Scotland as Byrness is little more than a collection of a few houses built for former timber workers. Therefore, we did our final resupply before heading off for our final few days on the Way.

The trail climbed steeply out of Bellingham, first along the road before finally stepping out onto farmland. After a further steep climb up to a farmhouse, we turned left and were greeted by an enthusiastic 3 year old waving at us from doorway. No doubt the little chap was overcome with emotion at seeing such famous hikers, so we made sure to give him a cheery wave before heading on.

From here, it was on to open moorland. This was the worst boggy stretch we had crossed on the whole Pennine Way and our feet were saturated within minutes. Normally it is possible to avoid the worst of these sections by tracking to the left or right a little but, in this case, this proved really difficult. The path frequently disappeared completely into a sodden morass and there was little we could do but try our best and progress slowly. This quickly became exhausting and slowed our progress down dramatically.

Eventually, however, we passed the worst of it and took a quick break on the only dryish ground we could find near the A6320. Here we saw a farmer expertly round up some stray sheep on his quad bike complete with three sheep dogs hanging on the back for deer life. After zooming around his fields at breakneck speeds, he eventually returned with a rather startled looking sheep on the back as well.

From here, the trail began a climb up to Whitley Pike and Padon Hill through mixed moorland grasses and heather. It was only slightly drier and we frequently came across tricky waterlogged sections to traverse. Gradually, however, bit by bit we made progress up the hill.

After all this moorland walking, the trail started to approach the Byrness forests. These are managed forests so often a section marked on our map as coniferous woodland would have been, in fact, chopped down.

There had been a strong storm which had gone through in early 2022 which had felled many of the trees. We had seen this on one of our previous days where the damage had entailed a significant diversion for us and it was evident here too. After bypassing some of these storm-damaged sections, we eventually entered the forest proper which made for much easier walking.

The sun came out after the cloudiness earlier in the day and it became quite warm out with the trees shading us from the strong winds. After what seemed to be a lot of walking along the forest track, we emerged to some of the small farmhouses preceding Byrness itself.

We saw lots of wildlife in the forests along the way, including startling some Roe Deer who bounded away on our approach. Finally, we found ourselves in the tiny village of Byrness.

Byrness is very small and was built to house forestry workers who planted the border forests. Nowadays, it is small and sleepy but importantly housed our accommodation for the night at the Forest View Inn.

We are now right on the border with only The Cheviots seperating us from the end of the Pennine Way. This is normally split into two days with many people wild camping on the hills. However, with the remnants of ex-Tropical Storm Alex coming through tomorrow, it is going to be too dangerous to camp up there. Therefore, we are going to be doing the 42km traverse of the hilly, tough Cheviots range in one day.